How to Add/Modify your Hosts file

1. Go to  Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Notepad

2. Type Notepadin the search field, Right-click Notepadand select Run as administrator.

3. From Notepad, open the following file: C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts

4. Make the required entries to the file.

5. Click File -> Save to save your changes.

How to add a user to Web Application User Policy using PowerShell

To add a user to web application user policy using PowerShell , use the below PowerShell script

$userOrGroup = "i:0#.w|domain\user"

$displayName = "User-NTLM"

$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication("URL")

$policy = $webApp.Policies.Add($userOrGroup, $displayName)

$policyRole = $webApp.PolicyRoles.GetSpecialRole([Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPolicyRoleType]::FullControl)

$policy.PolicyRoleBindings.Add($policyRole)

$webApp.Update() 

You need to be a site collection administrator to set this property.

Issue Description

Recently I was trying to add a site collection administrator to a site and I got the belowmessage

You need to be a site collection administrator to set this property.   at Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages.ManageSiteAdminPage.BtnSubmit_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)

   at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)

   at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument)

   at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument)

   at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

I was already the site collection administrator to the site and it did not make any sense.

Fix

On further trouble shooting, I found the solution for this.Browse to Central Administration - > Site Collection Quotas and Locks.

The options available here are:

       Not locked

Adding content prevented

Read-only (blocks additions, updates, and deletions)

No access

This site collection was in Read-only status. Unlock it (Change the status to  "Not Locked")

SharePoint 2013 Designer Workflow is not started and the initiator is Anonymous

Issue Description

Workflow created using SharePoint designer is not getting started and the initiator is Anonymous.

Recently I ran across an issue where a SharePoint Designer workflow associated with a list was showing the below symptoms. It was a simple list and a basic workflow sending an email. 
The status of the workflow showed :

Initiator : Anonymous and Internal Status : Not started

Screenshot below

How to fix this

1. Make sure that the below services are in Running state

Workflow Manager Backend

Service Bus Message Broker

Service Bus Gateway

Windows Fabric Host Service (FabricHostSvc)

2. Restart the WorkflowServiceBackend service

net stop WorkflowServiceBackend

net start WorkflowServiceBackend

Restore-SPSite : 0x80070003

Issue Description

I was trying to do a backup and restore operation between SharePoint farms and got the below error message:

Restore-SPSite : <nativehr>0x80070003</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>

Resolution

            Make sure that the source and target SharePoint farms are in the same SharePoint build versions.

SharePoint 2013 Query Suggestions

Query suggestions are phrases that you want the search system to suggest to users as they start typing a query. For example, as you start to type "Chicago", they may be able to pick  a word that starts with "Chicago" from a list below the Search Box.

The Query Suggestion feature needs to be enabled at the Service Application level to be activated.Once this is done there are 2 ways to implement query suggestion.

1. Manually upload the query suggestion list into SharePoint.

2. The search system automatically creates suggestions for a query when users have clicked one or more of the results for that query at least six times.

Manually uploading the query suggestion

1. Browse to Central Administration -> Service Applications -> Search Service Application.

2. Go to Queries and Results -> Query Suggestions

3. Select Show Query Suggestions

4. In Always suggest phrases -> Import from text file

5. Browse to Central Administration -> Monitoring -> Review job definitions ->Prepare query suggestions -> Run Now

6. In this example, I start typing for the word �Chicago�, all words starting with Chicago is automatically picked up.

Implementing Thesaurus in SharePoint 2013

1. Create a thesaurus file

2. Deploy/Import the Thesaurus file

3. Check the results

1. Create a thesaurus file

- In the Keycolumn, enter the term (single or multiple words) that you want to trigger a synonym for when the term occurs in a query.

- In the Synonymcolumn, enter the synonym (single or multiple words) that you want to add to the query if the term specified in the Key column occurs in a query.

- In the optional Languagecolumn, enter the abbreviation for the language for which the synonym should apply.

Example of a thesaurus looks like this:

 Key,Synonym,Language

IE,Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer,IE

UN,United Nations,en

UN,Vereinte Nationen,de

2. Deploy/Import the Thesaurus file

Start the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell.

$searchApp = Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication

Import-SPEnterpriseSearchThesaurus -SearchApplication $searchApp -Filename <Path>

<Path> specifies the full UNC path of the .csv file (the thesaurus) to be imported.Universal Naming Convention (UNC) is a way to identify a shared file in a computer without having to specify (or know) the storage device it is on. 

In Windows operating systems, the UNC name format is:

\\servername\sharename\path\filename

3. Check the results

When you search for "IE" you should get results with "IE" and "Internet Explorer"

SharePoint 2013 Thesaurus or Synonyms