Well, I guess it’s no surprise if you find the title of this blog post a bit confusing. It’s just made up of the relevant keywords that I’d expect folks to search for if they encounter the same issue that’s detailed here. No, it doesn’t encompass everything that will be searched for; I think it’s clear and descriptive enough as is.
The Problem
While attempting to upload high-quality images that are larger than 50 MB to a library (any kind of library, I tried them all to be thorough) in a SharePoint 2007 (MOSS 2007) site, I’d received the following messages.
- First, here’s are two screenshots of the messages that I’d see if I attempted to upload these files to the library with Internet Explorer.
- Second, here’s a screenshot of the message that I’d see if I attempted to upload these files to the library using Windows Explorer (after selecting the “Open with Windows Explorer” option from within the library’s “Actions” menu).
At this point, you’re probably thinking that I need to increase the maximum file upload size, right? Yep, you’re right. That was my first step. However, at this point I’m a consultant working on a project for a client. The point here is that I don’t have access to Central Administration and it’s all too often that this situation arises in the real world. As a result, I had to follow the client’s protocol and request that the maximum file size upload limit is increased to a reasonable limit to compensate for all of the files. Within a few minutes (which was surprising), I received a message indicating that the change had been made. However, even with the maximum file size upload limit increased, my uploads were still failing and I was still seeing the error messages above.
This led me to believe that the SharePoint administrator changed the maximum file size upload limit for the incorrect web application. After explaining to the client that the uploads were still failing, the SharePoint administrator reassured me that he modified the correct web application. After setting up a quick WebEx session, he showed me his screen and the settings in Central Administration and I was able to visually verify that he was correct. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time believing someone until I get such proof. It’s not that I don’t trust anyone; it’s just that I know how to troubleshoot issues and whenever it seems like it’s a simple fix, it usually is.
Unfortunately, we still had no solution at this point. I tried the same thing in virtual machines that I had and it worked fine. I tried in the client’s virtual machines and it worked fine. The only environment in which this was failing was the client’s development environment; I couldn’t attempt anything in production due to their policies and that’s quite alright with me. As things go, my next troubleshooting step was to discover the difference between their development environment and all of the other environments in which my efforts had succeeded. To keep this long story a bit shorter, I found that the operating system of the development environment was Windows Server 2008 while every other environment was running Windows Server 2003. That’s the important difference that led me to the solution, which is detailed here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944981 and the same problem is further detailed here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925083.
Now, before we go any further, it’s important to explain that my IT contact at the client claimed to have already read through both of these KB articles and had the corresponding fixes in place. However, he failed to read each KB article in full, specifically the following paragraph:
As it turned out, he had modified the web.config according to the article, but he had failed to read that one sentence that indicates a need to increase the value of the maxAllowedContentLength attribute. After pointing this out to him, he increased the value of this attribute and that fixed the problem. I was finally able to upload files larger than 50 MB to libraries in SharePoint 2007. It’s too bad that it took so long to get through to the IT department at the client site, but this is one of those things that happens to us when we’re working in the real world and don’t have complete control over everything that makes up our SharePoint environment.
The moral of the story here: Read all KB articles in full before putting any changes in place!