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I use this blog to share information with the community plus also as a repository for reference material on unique situations that I have come across.

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Web Application Timer Jobs not automatically created when restoring from SharePoint backups

*** UPDATE *** 
I was made aware of a fix in SP1 that should cover this issue. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941422

SharePoint administrator beware!!! You must manually recreate your web applications (with the exact naming as compared to what was backed up) to ensure that all the timer jobs for each web application is created when restoring from a SharePoint backup. The problem seems to be the automatic SharePoint restore that restores the databases and web applications must not follow the same method as if you were to do it manually because the automated restore does not create the necessary timer jobs for any web application restored. This includes immediate alerts, so if you have done a restore and you are wondering what has happened to your alert emails and your assigned-to emails it is because the restore didn't do a proper job.

Of course the recommendation for getting the timer jobs created and associated with the web application is to manually create the web applications BEFORE you restore. The problem is you might not realize there is a problem until after a couple weeks / months after your restore. Now you have to delete the web applications, create them manually, and restore from the last full backup.

Here is the Microsoft KB article that discusses the issue.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942989

Here is the link to my work around and fix for the issue that is less intrusive than running a complete restore of your farm.
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/llowevad/archive/2008/02/18/workaround-for-creating-timer-jobs-after-a-restore-in-sharepoint.aspx


 

Published Jan 25 2008, 03:18 PM by dwollerman
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Comments

 

Casey said:

How would you run a restore on an already created web application?  Right now I am having this problem and it is causing major pain for the users and I need a quick solution.  I am trying to run an import/export procedure on a test machine before trying this on production and I keep getting errors - I can't seem to find an end to this madness.  Let's say I run a backup, delete the web application, create the web application, then restore the web application - could I do this using the -backupmethod overwrite, instead of new?

January 25, 2008 8:26 PM
 

dwollerman said:

i am going to have to do this too here in the near future at a client site, but I can tell you what I have done in my testing so far.

What I have seen in the testing is that if you run a backup or already have a sharepoint farm backup. you would delete the web application (remove database and iis site as well). Then create the web application manually. Then using the sharepoint central administration backup restore you can restore the web application over the one you created manually.

From there you might still have to deal with the email issues, but all the timer jobs would be running for that web application at this point.

I have gotten the emails to work again but restarting the sharepoint timer service as well as the windows time service. I have done some Iisresets as well. If this still doesn't work, try running the configuration wizard again without changing any of the options. Sometimes the wizard will clean things up.

If this is still not working there are some methods that state you have to clear out certain tables in the database, but I can't advise to do that since Microsoft does NOT support directly editing the database. You can write a console app that wil remove all the alerts for a particular web application to accomplish the task without having to edit the tables directly.

Hope this helps.

January 25, 2008 8:46 PM
 

casey said:

That helps alot, thank you.  Like I said, it was recommended that I do the import/export procedure, stsadm -o import and -o export, have you explored that fix ever?  I was so close to getting this to work on my test machine and on the final step, -o import, my site returned 111 errors!

What do you mean by email issues?

January 25, 2008 9:02 PM
 

dwollerman said:

I have done the export / import, but that just moves the content it doesn't move any customizations or site structure. It is a nice tool, but they are just the command utilities for the "Content Deployment" function in central administration. I wish they had a backup / restore utility for sites like they do for the site collection.

The email issues i am running into have to do with the email for alerts and "assigned-to" assignments do not work after a restore. This is most likely caused because the immediate alerts job isn't there, but I have had to do the other things that i mentioned just to get them to work again as well.

January 25, 2008 9:41 PM
 

SharePoint Link Love: 01-27-2008 part deux at Virtual Generations said:

Pingback from  SharePoint Link Love: 01-27-2008 part deux at  Virtual Generations

January 27, 2008 8:20 AM
 

Dave Wollerman's SharePoint Blog said:

Updated on 1/28/2008 to include link to post related to web application timer jobs and SharePoint restore

January 28, 2008 7:00 AM
 

Dave Wollerman's SharePoint Blog said:

I have recently done a restore of a SharePoint farm without first creating the web applications as Microsoft

February 18, 2008 3:32 PM
 

dwollerman said:

www.sharepointblogs.com/.../workaround-for-creating-timer-jobs-after-a-restore-in-sharepoint.aspx

The above link is to a new post I created that outlines my fix / workaround for this issue.

February 18, 2008 3:36 PM
 

SHAREPOINTBlogs.com Mirror said:

I have recently done a restore of a SharePoint farm without first creating the web applications as Microsoft

February 18, 2008 4:11 PM
 

Matthew Chestnut said:

This hotfix may fix the problem you describe:

"Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 post-Service Pack 1 hotfix package: January 31, 2008"

support.microsoft.com/.../941422

This hotfix package also fixes the following issues that were not previously documented in a Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Timer jobs may be missing after you restore a backup

After you restore a backup to another server, many Windows SharePoint Services timer jobs may be missing on the restored server.

February 19, 2008 2:53 PM
 

dwollerman said:

Awesome that is good to know. I will have add that information as an update to the blog post in case people don't read the comments.

It is true, that I did this restore on a pre-sp1 farm. So this would be a great fix for Microsoft. I am not sure why the issue was there in the first place. I would think that Microsoft would use the same methods to create the web application no matter the origination of the call.

February 24, 2008 7:21 PM

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