Reza Zareian Fard's Blog

Sitecore site suddenly goes down (Azure PaaS)

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:42:00 GMT

Problem:

Recently in one of our projects, a happy and well performing site, suddenly started performing really poorly to a point that it started throwing 502 errors and basically Site went down!

As an initial investigation step, we started looking at resource utilization but everything seemed to be perfectly fine, CPU utilization was under 40% and Memory utilization was below 50% the rest of resources such as Redis, SQL DTUs, etc were also following the smiliar pattern

After hours of investigation and getting Sitecore support team involved, Sitecore support deep dive into memory dump of CD server shown some threads are being blocked while Sitecore was trying to send the logs to Application Insight via log4net

As you could see the thread 127 was blocked by Application Insight Post action

Solution:

This was happening due to Application Insight logs not being batched and as you know there are quite a lot of logs flowing through so if response time of Application INsight API is degregated for any reason, this could happen to many threads.

To resolve this, you can set the logs to be batched by changing the AutoFlash to false for trace in your web.config

Quick tip: Sitecore XC 903 Certificate issue

Mon, 02 Sep 2019 23:30:00 GMT

TerminatingError(New-SelfSignedCertificate): "CertEnroll::CSignerCertificate::Initialize: Cannot find object or property. 0x80092004 (-2146885628 CRYPT_E_NOT_FOUND)"

I've been struggling with this error today and I almost gave up, digging further into the issue I realized that to use the SIF 2.0 I did change the Store Location to LocalMachine for certificates while installing SC XP 902. This change installs the DO_NOT_TRUST_SitecoreRootCert to Trusted certificates in LocalMachine which is fine for XP.

But when you try installing Sitecore Commerce, the ManageCommerceService.PS1 will explicitly looking for this certificate in My folder as you can see in the image below:

Solution

Copy the DO_NOT_TRUST_SitecoreRootCert from Trusted Root Certification to Personal

Quick tip: Sitecore XC 9.0 installation error

Fri, 18 Jan 2019 17:00:00 GMT

NewSignedCertificateTask : Cannot validate argument on parameter ‘Signer’. The “$_.HasPrivateKey -eq $true” validation script for the argument with value “[Subject]

If you are getting NewSignedCertificateTask : Cannot validate argument on parameter ‘Signer’. The “$_.HasPrivateKey -eq $true” validation script for the argument with value “[Subject] while installing Sitecore XC 9.0.x, it is potentially because of the SIF version you are using.

Try switching to SIF 1.2.1 and the problem should be fixed

To do so run the below commands in a PS window which is running in admin mode:

PS C:\> Install-Module SitecoreInstallFramework -RequiredVersion 1.2.1

PS C:\> Import-Module -Name SitecoreInstallFramework -RequiredVersion 1.2.1

How to write a generic service in WCF

Wed, 30 May 2012 21:01:00 GMT

In one of my recent projects I needed a generic service as a facade to handle General activities such as CRUD.Therefor I searched as Many as I could but there was no Idea on generic services so I tried to figure it out by my self.

( I'm using a self hoster and this article's target is the people who know about WCF and it's concepts so you can find more about WCF here : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663324.aspx)

Finally,I found a way :

Create a generic contract as below :

[ServiceContract]

public interface IEntityReadService<TEntity>
        where TEntity : EntityBase, new()
    {
        [OperationContract(Name = "Get")]
        TEntity Get(Int64 Id);
        [OperationContract(Name = "GetAll")]
        List<TEntity> GetAll();
        [OperationContract(Name = "GetAllPaged")]
        List<TEntity> GetAll(int pageSize, int currentPageIndex, ref int totalRecords);

	[OperationContract(Name = "GetAllConditional")]
        List<TEntity> GetAll(string whereClause, string orderBy, int pageSize, int currentPageIndex, ref int totalRecords);
      
    }

then create your service class :

  public class GenericService<TEntity> :IEntityReadService<TEntity>

	where TEntity : EntityBase, new()

{
#region Implementation of IEntityReadService<TEntity>
 
        public TEntity Get(long Id)
        {
            return BusinessController.Get(Id);
        }
 
 
 
        public List<TEntity> GetAll()
        {
            try
            {
                return BusinessController.GetAll().ToList();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                
                throw;
            }
            
        }
 
        public List<TEntity> GetAll(int pageSize, int currentPageIndex, ref int totalRecords)
        {
            return
                BusinessController.GetAll(pageSize, currentPageIndex, ref totalRecords).ToList();
        }
 
        public List<TEntity> GetAll(string whereClause, string orderBy, int pageSize, int currentPageIndex, ref int totalRecords)
        {
            return
                BusinessController.GetAll(pageSize, currentPageIndex, ref totalRecords, whereClause, orderBy).ToList();
        }
 
 

        #endregion

}

Then, set your EndPoint configuration in this way :
<endpoint 
          address="myAddress" binding="basicHttpBinding" 
          bindingConfiguration="myBindingConfiguration1"
          contract="Contracts.IEntityReadService`1[[Entities.mySampleEntity, Entities]], Service.Contracts"  />

Visual Studio 2010 now supports HTML5.0 and CSS3

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 07:51:00 GMT

"We just released the first Web Standards Update for Visual Studio 2010 SP1. Despite its name, the update also works for Visual Web Developer Express 2010 SP1. You can read more on our team blog.

In this first release of the update, we have focused on bringing the HTML5 support up-to-date, adding CSS 3 support and bring more new API’s to the JavaScript intellisense. The plan is to make a release about every 3 months to keep Visual Studio updated with the changes made by W3C." Microsoft team member announced today.

Using Web Standards Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SP1 which is free extension you can know develope your webpages over HTML5 and CSS3 and enjoy it's wondeful features based on current W3C specifications.

You can download it from Here

Feature Comparison Among Workflow Engines (Part 1)

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:55:00 GMT

Feature Comparison Among

Workflow Engines

Introduction

In this post I compare workflow engines base on factors which are important in every process-driven application.

Factors that I considered are as below :

1.Support of workflow architectures : State Machine, Sequential, Flowchart

2.Event-driven built-in framework for alerts
        (with this feature we can have event raised by reaching a threshold like getting out of stocks in repository and
          associate workflow with events.)

3.Security handling

4.support of pause, Hold, ... states

5.Parallel activities (fork / join)

6.Work tracking and logging (Activity and Event)

7.Building custom activities

8.Graphical workflow designer

9.Runtime workflow alteration
        (Like changing an IF condition based on runtime)

10.Database they support natively

11.Interoperability and Integration with other systems
        (Like share point, Biztalk server, WCF, MSMQ)

12.Other systematic prerequisites
        (Like specific version of .net framework)

13.Performance under heavy load

14.Central exception handling

15.Developer company future support
        (For releasing service packs and new features)

16.Staff training complexity

17.Interaction Languages
        (Is there any intermediary language for communication with workflow?)

18.Design workflow in Code, Designer and ...

In the blow table I will compare four famous products in workflow industry .

Feature	Skelta	WF4	K2	Stateless
Workflow architectures	Flowchart	Sequential - Flowchart - State machine (using CTP State machine)	Flowchart	State machine
Event-Driven built-in framework	Yes	Yes	Yes	Must be implemented
Security Handling	Internal Security system	Integrated with .net security	Internal Security system	Must be implemented
Stop, Pause, Hold	Yes	Yes	Yes	NO
Parallel activities	Yes	Yes	Yes	NO
Work Tracking and logging	Yes	Yes	Yes	Must be implemented
Custom activities	Yes	Yes	Yes	Must be implemented
Graphical designer	Yes	Yes	Yes	NO
Runtime workflow alteration	NO	Yes	Yes	Yes
Supported Databases	Any	Any	SQL	Any
Interoperability with other system	SaS (WCF framework)	Yes	Yes	Must be implemented
Systematic Prerequisite	-	.net 4.0	.net 3.5	-
Performance
Central Exception Handling	NO	Yes	Yes	Must be implemented
Developer company future support	Most Likely	Likely	Most Likely	-
Staff training complexity	Little difficult	Easy	Easy	Easier
Interaction languages	C#	All .Net Languages	C# and Inline tools	C#
Design workflow in code	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Sharepoint Events support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Must be implemented
Design Environment	Web Based	VS Integrated , Support XAML	VS Integrated	-
Form Designer	Yes	Share Point	Share Point	-
SSL for authentication	NO	Must be implemented	Yes	Must be implemented
Reporting	Yes	Must be implemented	Yes (+ Designer)	Must be implemented