Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting SharePoint Alerts A common theme running through the SharePoint newsgroups is the frustration of troubleshooting SharePoint Alerts such as when they stop working altogether or work intermittently. I am trying to organise a comprehensive step-by-step troubleshooting guide that should help solve the most common problems. Its a work in progress so if you know of anything that should be added then let me know by adding a comment. Please Note – this guide is for the Out of the Box (OOTB) alerts in SharePoint, not Pentalogic’s Reminder software (though some parts apply to both). Contact us directly for support for Reminder. Troubleshooting Flowchart Flowchart in text form The first step is to ensure you understand the difference between Confirmation Emails and Alert Emails. Are you getting any emails? No Check email infrastructure Check SharePoint Timer Jobs Yes – carry on to Which best describes your symptoms? Getting initial Confirmation Emails but no Alert Emails Check email infrastructure Check SharePoint timer Jobs Check list permissions Getting emails for some users but not others Check SharePoint user list and List Permissions Check email infrastructure Intermittent Problem Check email infrastructure in particular take note that timer jobs may run on different servers in your farm. You have upgraded from 2003 to 2007 and are no longer getting emails You are getting emails but there is some problem with them Further Reading

53 Responses to “Troubleshooting”

1. Dorit Kretchmer says:

   December 19, 2011 at 9:53 am

   Hi,
   My name is Dorit and I have a problem with SharePoint alters. I work with SharePoint 2007. I get a daily mail of changed items but for some reason each changed item appears twice in the email (duplicated within the email). Does anyone have a solution for this? Thanks
2. Bobby D. says:

   February 2, 2012 at 7:24 pm

   We just got sharepoint at my organization. Every alert I get shows all the information that had been edited out, so we get the new update and the old information in a slightly lighter colour with strikeout font.
3. Shaf says:

   May 1, 2012 at 11:23 pm

   Dorit,
   I guess you must have enabled Alert Me twice for your SharePoint List/Lib. Please follow the below steps to remove duplicate Alerts:
   1. In the Calendar – Go to Actions -> Alert Me
   2. Then at the left side click on the link ‘View my existing alerts on this site.’
   3. Select all the unwanted Alerts and click Delete Selected Alerts
   Hope this helps!!!
   Thanks,
   Shaf