This week, I was taking a look at the Central Administration site for a test machine we are running. This machine has been in place for at least 5 years, maybe longer. I can get into CA, I can get into the Operations and Application management pages. I can go into the Shared Services Administration page. But when I try to go into the SSP1 management page, I get an HTTP 400 error. This used to work. However, I do not know how long ago it was that I was last in the page. What do I need to do to get that page again - and what account privs do I need to do it? In looking at related topics, I saw one thread which suggested doing an stsadm -o editssp function. I tried to do that, but got an error saying invalid shared services provider/Web app could not be found when I tried using the https URL format shown in the thread. Then, I tried using http instead of https and this time, I got an Invalid shared services proviider/Cannot open database SharePoint_WWW_Content requested by login. I was using sa_sps at the time. So, I am trying to figure out what to try next to get that management page back. Thank you for your help.

HTTP 400 is a "bad request" which doesn't necessarily mean the site is missing. Do you see the web application for the SSP Administration site in Central Admiistrator (Application Management -> Web Application List)? Does the web site exist in IIS? Is the application pool running? Do you see the site collection in Site collection list (Application Management -> Site collection list)? Can you access the site using the URL from the Site collection list? You should also check the IIS logs and capture the attempts to access the site. This will report the HTTP status and substatus codes which will further narrow the issue. Jason Warren Infrastructure Specialist Habanero Consulting Group habaneroconsulting.com/blog

Do you see the web application for the SSP Administration site in Central Admiistrator (Application Management -> Web Application List)? Does the web site exist in IIS? Is the application pool running? Do you see the site collection in Site collection list (Application Management -> Site collection list)? Can you access the site using the URL from the Site collection list? You should also check the IIS logs and capture the attempts to access the site. This will report the HTTP status and substatus codes which will further narrow the issue. What do I look for in the web app list for the SSP Admin site? I see 2 things - the machine web app, and the machine's central admin web app. This is identical to what I see in another sharepoint machine we have which works as expected. What I am missing is the page called http://MyMachine/ssp/admin/default.aspx - called the Shared Services Administration: Default Web Site page. On the machine where things are working, that's the page I see. However, on this "broken" machine, what I see when attempting to access that URL is a page that says The webpage cannot be found <id id="http404"></id> HTTP 404</id><//id> Most likely causes: There might be a typing error in the address. If you clicked on a link, it may be out of date. What you can try: <id id="retypeAddress"></id>Retype the address.</id><//id> Go back to the previous page.<noscript id="goBack"></noscript> <id id="mainSite1"></id>Go to </id><//id><noscript id="mainSite2"></noscript><id id="mainSite3"></id> and look for the information you want.</id><//id> More information<noscript></noscript> This error (HTTP 404 Not Found) means that Internet Explorer was able to connect to the website, but the page you wanted was not found. It's possible that the webpage is temporarily unavailable. Alternatively, the website might have changed or removed the webpage. For more information about HTTP errors, see Help. I can get to http://MyMachine/ so it seems like it must be in IIS. I see 3 things under Web Sites in IIS Manager - Office Server Web SErvices, Default Web Site, and SharePoint Central Administration. When I look under Application Pools, I see OfficeServerApplication Pool, SharePoint - 80, SharePoint Central Administration, and SSP1. I click on SSP1, click right, and Stop is one of the options, so it appears that it is running. Is there something I can do specifically to see that it is running? I don't know what site collection ssp/admin/default.aspx should be in. I see, in Site Collection List, /, /MySite, a bunch of /personal/... sites. I tried doing a search on ssp/ in the URL Search of the Site Collection List and it didn't find a site collection by that name. But then, on the site that works, I don't see a site collection by that name either. When I try to "edit properties" for the default SSP1, I get the error: An unhandled exception occurred in the user interface.Exception Information: Cannot open database "SharePoint_SSP" requested by the login. The login failed. Login failed for user 'sa_spsdev'. When I go to SQL Server Managment Studio, I see SharePoint_SSP as a database where it should be. HOWEVER, when I try to look at it, I get an error indicating that I don't have permissions to see it. As for checing IIS logs, are you talking about the 12hive\Logs\Usage files, or something else?

So from your explanation, it sounds like you expect the SSP site to be at http://MyMachine/ssp/admin/default.aspx, and that the site collection /ssp is not listed in the site collection list for the web application http://MyMachine. It looks like someone has deleted the SSP site collection. This could have been accidental or on purpose, though there's not much you can do about it now if it no longer exists. Did it exist in its own content database? If so, maybe the content database has gone offline or is otherwise unavailable. I have to be honest, I don't think the site collection can be recreated so my only thoughts at this point would be to delete the SSP and create a new one. The problem with this approach is since you cannot access the old SSP administration site, you cannot retrieve the settings. A tool like SharePoint Manager 2007 may help with viewing these settings. Victor Butuza's post about moving the SSP may be of some help as well. The procedure described is to resolve issues where you need to recreate the SSP (believe me, this was pretty common) but do not wish to lose the configuration. Jason Warren Infrastructure Specialist Habanero Consulting Group habaneroconsulting.com/blog

HI, Are you able to see application pages via ssp website? You can try it by adding _layouts/viewlsts.aspx to your ssp site url and can observe if it opening or not. Do you have any other SSP created? If yes you can mark that as default. I hope this will help you out.Thanks, Rahul Rashu

Re: So from your explanation, it sounds like you expect the SSP site to be at http://MyMachine/ssp/admin/default.aspx, and that the site collection /ssp is not listed in the site collection list for the web application http://MyMachine. I have a machine where I get the Shared Services Admin default web site correctly. It exists on that machine as http://thatmachine/ssp/admin/defualt.aspx. On that machine, there is a site collection called /ssp/admin. So, I go back to MyMachine and try again, and this time, I do get back, from Central Admin > App Management > Site Collection List, /ssp/admin from MyMachine as well. However, in a peculiar twist, none of the sites appearing in the site collection list are displaying their details. On thatmachine, selecting a site collection shows info like URL, Title, Description, Primary admin, email address, and database name. On MyMachine, none of that information is shown. So, I can't tell you if it is in its own content database. Note that this is not a sharepoint site that we created. This appears to be something that the install process, or Central Admin, created when creating the default SSP... Does that help any?

Can you describe your farm? How many servers, role of each? I'm confused by your latest post, are MyMachine and thatmachine in the same farm? Jason Warren Infrastructure Specialist Habanero Consulting Group habaneroconsulting.com/blog

We have a very simple farm. We have a development, qa, and production small farm. Each farm is configured similarly. There is one machine which performs all of MOSS SharePoint 2007's web front end, application, ssp, and central admin functions. And there are separate shared sql server instances for each machine. So on dev, the oldest machine, and prod the second oldest machine - originally 2003 machines that have been upgraded through 2007 to 2007 SP1, Central Admin's Shared Services Admin has a default web site administration page on each machine that displays categofies of user profiles and my sites, search, excel services settings, audiences, office sharepoint usage reporting, and business data catalog. The QA machine is the one with the missing page. It is the newer of the machines - I think it is about 5 years old (before my time with SharePoint). Since all 3 are configured the same way, I was surprised when I went to look at the Shared Services Administration page and found a 404 instead. I doubt it was intentionally deleted. I don't know what creates that page, but since the CA lists the site collection, then I expect that it existed at some point. I have tried clicking down into some of the configuration pages in the site that exists on the other two farms, then copying that URL, changing the machine name, and trying to access the individual pages. I get "Unknown Error" as the page that is returned. I was just hoping that there was some way to get the SSP reconstructed without starting from scratch, since I have never created one before.

I see. So you have three farms - prod, qa, and dev. Each farm has all SharePoint services and applications on a single server. Database for each is in separate SQL Server sahred instance (I'm assuming all three farms are sharing the same instance?). In the qa farm, the SSP administration site is missing. Deleting and recreating is probably your best bet, and since you point out you've never done it before it will be a good learning experience ;). Since it's QA you don't necessarily have to worry about messing anything up. Configure the primary Shared Services Provider Jason Warren Infrastructure Specialist Habanero Consulting Group habaneroconsulting.com/blog

The 3 farms do not share the same instance - dev and qa share the same hw server, but in their own instance. The prod farm's data is on a prod support shared sql server. Thank you for the pointer. I will research the questions that document will be asking me to try and figure out what the values should be. I appreciate all your help.