Get all published items in Sitecore 6.1/6.2

You may need to get all items that were processes by a publishing operation for different reasons, for example, pull certain information for each item and notify CDN of a change so cache could be purged. AKAMAI can be configured to behave that way.
Currently we have two articles on the subject. This one describes how to use the PublishEngine, second article suggests approach with custom PublishLog. Both are not compatible with 6.x. So I’ve looked into the options for the latest Sitecore with tech support. Our findings included introduction of a new PublishProcessor which examines the Queue property of PublishContext, but this did not work properly for smart publishing and I wanted a bulletproof yet simple approach applicable to all possible publishing modes.
Then I remembered that we are already doing similar things for indexing. The update index job processes only changed items and gets that information from the History storage.

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WFFM 2.0 module: Form Reports Viewer throws exception

If you are like me who enjoys stripping down Sitecore solution as much as possible, you may stumble across this as well.

On Sitecore 6.1/6.2 install with awesome Web Forms for Marketers module 2.0, you may get the following exception if your bin folder is missing SQLite assemblies (Sitecore.SQLite.dll and System.Data.SQLite.DLL). Even if you are not using SQLite, apparently, there is a dependency on these guys from the module’s assemblies. Putting them back obviously solves the problem.

Server Error in '/' Application.

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Unable to load one or more of the requested types. Retrieve the LoaderExceptions property for more information.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.Reflection.ReflectionTypeLoadException: Unable to load one or more of the requested types. Retrieve the LoaderExceptions property for more information.
Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:

[ReflectionTypeLoadException: Unable to load one or more of the requested types. Retrieve the LoaderExceptions property for more information.] System.Reflection.Module._GetTypesInternal(StackCrawlMark& stackMark) +0 System.Reflection.Assembly.GetTypes() +111 System.Data.Metadata.Edm.AssemblyCacheEntry.LoadTypesFromAssembly(LoadingContext context) +28 System.Data.Metadata.Edm.AssemblyCacheEntry.InternalLoadAssemblyFromCache(LoadingContext context) +290 System.Data.Metadata.Edm.AssemblyCacheEntry.LoadAssemblyFromCache(Assembly assembly, Boolean loadReferencedAssemblies, Dictionary`2 knownAssemblies, Dictionary`2& typesInLoading, List`1& errors) +137 System.Data.Metadata.Edm.ObjectItemCollection.LoadAssemblyFromCache(ObjectItemCollection objectItemCollection, Assembly assembly, Boolean loadReferencedAssemblies) +284 System.Data.Metadata.Edm.ObjectItemCollection.LoadAssemblyForType(Type type) +33 System.Data.Metadata.Edm.MetadataWorkspace.LoadAssemblyForType(Type type, Assembly callingAssembly) +80 System.Data.Common.Utils.MetadataHelper.TryDetermineCSpaceModelType(MetadataWorkspace workspace, EntityType& modelEntityType) +67 System.Data.Objects.ObjectContext.ExecuteFunction(String functionName, ObjectParameter[] parameters) +238 Sitecore.Forms.Data.SitecoreWebFormsContext.GetFormsByMainParams(Nullable`1 formId, String storageName, Nullable`1 pageIndex, Nullable`1 pageSize, Nullable`1 asc, ObjectParameter returnValue) +593 Sitecore.Forms.Data.DataProviders.WFMDataProvider.GetForms(QueryParams queryParams, Int32& total) +911 Sitecore.Forms.Data.DataProvider.GetPage(PageCriteria page, IList`1 sort, IList`1 filters) +534 Sitecore.Form.DataViewer.SortedFilterable`1.GetPage(PageCriteria page, IList`1 sort, IList`1 filter) +55 Sitecore.Form.Core.DataViewer.FormGridSource`1.GetEntries(Int32 pageIndex, Int32 pageSize) +104 Sitecore.Form.DataViewer.ComponentArtGridHandler`1.GetDataSource(Int32 pageIndex, Int32 pageSize) +56 Sitecore.Form.DataViewer.ComponentArtGridHandler`1.ApplyDataSource() +76 Sitecore.Form.DataViewer.ComponentArtGridHandler`1.Grid_NeedDataSource(Object sender, EventArgs e) +54 ComponentArt.Web.UI.Grid.OnNeedDataSource(EventArgs e) +36 ComponentArt.Web.UI.Grid.DataBind() +475 Sitecore.Form.DataViewer.ComponentArtGridHandler`1.DataBind() +17 Sitecore.Form.DataViewer.ComponentArtGridHandler`1.InitializeGrid(Boolean dataBind) +503 Sitecore.Form.DataViewer.ComponentArtGridHandler`1..ctor(Grid grid, IGridSource`1 source, Boolean dataBind) +173 Sitecore.Form.DataViewer.ComponentArtGridHandler`1.Manage(Grid grid, IGridSource`1 source, Boolean dataBind) +94 Sitecore.Forms.Shell.UI.FormDataViewer.FormDataViewerPage.GridRender(Boolean update) +360 Sitecore.Forms.Shell.UI.FormDataViewer.FormDataViewerPage.OnPageSelected(Object sender, MultiPageSelectEventArgs e) +110 Sitecore.Forms.Shell.UI.FormDataViewer.FormDataViewerPage.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +223 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +50 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +141 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +627

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Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.4927; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.4927

Friday case: Sitecore is not starting up

Just had to deal with a pretty mysterious issue when my Sitecore app stopped staring up for whatever reasons.
Symptoms:
- nothing happens, browser just hangs with the “Connecting…” message
- nothing in the Sitecore logs
- nothing in the Event Viewer
- nothing unusual on the SQL side
- nothing unusually heavy on the worker process – CPU is idling out, memory is fine.

In overall, a sign that something is inherently wrong.

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Quick tip: resolving section sort order problem with inheritance

There is a known issue currently with the sort order set on the standard values for the “/sitecore/templates/System/Templates/Template section” template and not being picked correctly and always treated as zero until you set the sort order specifically for the section thus overriding the standard value.

This has impact on section inheritance, producing unexpected behavior in the following case:
1. You have an abstract “base product” template with the following sections:

2. You have a derivative template “monitor” with its own domain specific data section:

3. You want to have certain sections from the “base product” template show up first, then the “data” section from the “monitor” template itself, then the rest of sections from base:
 

Since the default inherited sort order for a section is 100 (coming from __Standard values), however you won’t be able to accomplish this by setting the sort order of “descriptors” and “product data” section to 80 and 90 correspondingly.
This is because the value for the section sort order that is coming from the __Standard values will always be considered as zero.

There is an easy and simple way to solve this by simply setting the sort order of “descriptors” and “product data” sections to negative values (-2 and -1) for example.

Enjoy!

Partial (Item) Cache Clearing Module – SitecoreStager (update)

A quick update. We have released new version of the Staging module with the full support of partial item cache clearing.
Not everyone was comfortable with full cache clearing process and that we released Stager as a shared source, now we have an official, supported, ready to go component addressing this need.

If you are not using Stager (I blogged about it some time ago) yet and have Staging module installed, seriously consider upgrading.

Check out the release notes here, there are some important things fixed also.
Enjoy!