Impact of placing NewsGator / Sharepoint content databases in Read-only mode?

• NewsGator/Sitrion Service Applications: The only impact is that you cannot change permissions or settings. Otherwise service applications are fully accessible in read-only mode.
• NewsGator/Sitrion Timer Jobs: Newsgator timer jobs continue to be scheduled and execute per usual. Any job that attempts to update the database is not successful. This does not have an impact to the end-user, but server administrators sees errors in the windows event logs and ULS related to failing at updating databases in read-only mode.
• Notable NewsGator/Sitrion web parts and pages:
  • Activity Stream: If a user tries to post, they receive a message that “Your message didn’t go through—there was an error adding your post.” Users can switch stream filters as usual.

  

  Activity Stream

  • Activity Stream Narrow view: If a user tries to post, they receive a message that “Your message didn’t go through—there was an error adding your post.”Users can switch stream filters as usual.
  • Getting Started: Although this web part is intended to take a new user through filling out their profile and completing a basic walkthrough of social functionality, any part that saves data to the profile (such as updating skills or interests) is unresponsive. This does not lock up the page or error out, but does not update profile information.
  • My Communities: This control works as normal.
  • Recommended Colleagues: Only displays the message “An unexpected error occurred. We were unable to process your request.”
  • Communities Overview: Communities are listed along with create date, last activity, member count, and a follow/stop following control as normal. If a user tries to use the follow or stop following control from this webpart, they see a brief message stating that “An unexpected error occurred. We were unable to process your request.”

  

  Communities Overview

  • Earned badges: As this web part only reads data, it displays as normal.
  • Spotlight Search: Spotlight search functions as normal – it only reads data.
  • Colleagues: Colleagues function normally.
  • Who’s Following Me: Who’s following me functions normally.
  • What’s new (community activity stream): If a user tries to post, they receive a message that “Your message didn’t go through—there was an error adding your post.”Users can switch stream filters without errors.
  • Community Members: Functions normally.
  • Follow Community: When clicked, you see an error message “An unexpected error occurred. We were unable to process your request.” Following status isn’t changed.

  

  • Lookout page: Upon loading the page, users are presented with a message that states “An unexpected error occurred. We were unable to process your request.” Any action that involves adding a new tile or changing a filter on an existing tile precipitates this message. If a user tries to post, they receive a message that “Your message didn’t go through—there was an error adding your post.”

  

  • Lookout 360: Functions normally although you may not post.
  • Internal Communications Home Page: Icomm Activity Stream shows no data but a brief outline. Otherwise functions per normal.

  

  • Please note that this is not a comprehensive list of all Aurea Social web parts.
• General takeaways on read only:

  SharePoint displays a message to users in read-only sites “We apologize for the inconvenience, but we’ve made the site read only while we’re making some improvements.” This is an out of the box SharePoint message. You can read more about how a Sharepoint farm reacts to read-only here.

  

  No pages that Aurea Social tested are inaccessible due to unexpected errors with a correlation ID in our test environment.

  The only error messages that users receive is when they try to input data – create a post, upload a document, follow a community, etc. In this instance the user is informed, within the context of the web part that their action didn’t complete.

  The page is still completely accessible. The only notable exception is the lookout page, where the error message must first be dismissed.

  Generally, anything that only reads data works fine. If data is input (or anything that’s going to update the database such as follow / unfollow), that’s when a user sees an error message.