SharePoint 2010 Data Type Errors

So, having being tasked with creating a good deal of Content Types recently, I thought I’d be clever and write some PowerShell Scripts to do them for me.

Everything was going well until I ran a script that had an incorrect Field Type specified. Or, more accurately I made a typo when specifying a DateTime column. The Field Type is the Column type that you get to choose when creating a new column. I didn’t spot the problem until I tried checking on the outcome via Galleries à Site Columns and saw this error: -

I traced the log message down, which provided the following information: -

“Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: Field type Date is not installed properly. Go to the list settings page to delete this field. at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFieldCollection.CreateSPFieldFromSafeArray(Int32 index) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFieldCollection.CreateSPField(Int32 ifld) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFieldCollection.EnsureSPField(Int32 index) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPFieldCollection.ItemAtIndex(Int32 iIndex) at Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationPages.FieldListRenderer.OnPreRender(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveIn… “

As my errant column wasn’t yet attached to a list, I wasn’t able to log into any list settings to delete the column. My next port of call was SPD. However, upon trying this, I was hit with the following error: -

Not being able to get anywhere via the GUI, I thought I’d take a look at the Hive\14 files where SharePoint stores its Field Types. The SharePoint field times will typically be stored in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\TEMPLATE\XML\fldtypes.xml

Looking here, the definition for DateTime looked intact. For reference, the DateTime definition starts on line 346.

This meant that having made the error via scripting, I should be able to fix it via scripting. I’ll post back here if I work it out!

Microsoft Community Contributor Award

Not so long ago, and to some considerable surprise, I found out that I´d won a new type of Microsoft Award, the MCC, which stands for Microsoft Community Contributor. I´d not gotten an email about it as I didn´t have the relevant email address in my safe list but once I found out what it was, I was rather pleased to have been selected.

It´s sort of a way to award regular forum contributors across the TechNet, MSDN or Answers 2.0 forums, and I think it’s a great idea. I spend a lot of time in the TechNet administrator forums, generally helping others out, but that was mostly because I got a lot out of it too.

So, yeah, I thought my first blog post should cover that; short, sweet and done.

In other community news, I´ve signed up as a contributor to Kat Weixel´s End User Certification project, which I think will be a great use for many people. I´ll post more about that once we´re underway.

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Ow

Today, Stevo fouled up his leg.  He now cannot feel his right foot and hope it doesn’t involve a trip to the hospital.  Especially as its Sweden and bloody freezing here.