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Our company does not have hot DR site for our SharePoint environment. So we are using the process to restore the data to our DR site:

  1. Create all site collections in DR pointing to the same ContentDatabase name as it's counterpart in production (example if: http://prodsite/teams/team1 was pointing to PRD_ContentDB3 then we setup http://drsite/teams/team1 to point to PRD_ContentDB3 on the DR SQL Server).

  2. Detatch and then delete the databases created in #1.

  3. Restore production databases to the DR SQL Server. Update all security on the databases to match production, but using the DR accounts.

  4. Ran Powershell to re-attatch the database to SharePoint.

We are setup with CLAIMS authentication.

Once the restore was done, we could not connect to the sites that existed in production. Every site returns an error: "Sorry, something went wrong. File not Found. If I create a new site collection in a new content database it works fine. If I create a new site collection in a DB from prod it works, but anything that existed in prod will not work (including the root).

We have a DB alias setup that matches production (except points to the DR SQL server). Has anyone else had this before? Have I missed a step somewhere?

Thanks in advance.

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  • are we talking about two different farms or one farm with two Web app? or two farms but single sql server
    – Waqas Sarwar MVP ♦
    Jul 16, 2015 at 19:27
  • The DR environment is a separate farm (SharePoint and SQL) entirely.
    – David Drever
    Jul 16, 2015 at 19:34
  • ok, just for understanding the issue....you restored the DB from production to DR farm....after that you are getting the file not found error in DR farm not Production, correct?
    – Waqas Sarwar MVP ♦
    Jul 16, 2015 at 19:40
  • Yes that is correct. (thanks for responding BTW). Production is fine. The DB came from Production to the DR site. Once restored trying to access under the DR URL is not working, however new sites created are accessible.
    – David Drever
    Jul 16, 2015 at 20:39

1 Answer 1

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As per Your DR scenario, you have two independent farm. I would recommend the following steps.

  • Setup the DR farm same as Prod Farm( which i believe you have).
  • Now Create the web app and configure the same authentication etc.
  • Now take the backup the content database from Production sql server
  • Restore the database on the DR farm and attached to the web app.
  • From central admin > application management >view all site collections... check all your production sites are here. also make sure root level site collection is their.."/".

Note: no need to create the site collections in advance, as you are restoring the DB it will take care of it.

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11
  • So you are saying that I should copy over the config database too? Otherwise, that won't work since the location of the site collections is located in the config DB. If I just copied over the Content DB, the config DB wouldn't know the site collections are now available.
    – David Drever
    Jul 16, 2015 at 20:40
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    Not config, only content..once u attached the db to sharepoint farm...config will get all the information during that attachments process
    – Waqas Sarwar MVP ♦
    Jul 16, 2015 at 20:52
  • Also last thing which I mentioned check CA if all site collections are their r nto
    – Waqas Sarwar MVP ♦
    Jul 16, 2015 at 20:53
  • Ok, so one more question if you don't mind. When you say setup DR the same as prod, do you mean that I need to set it up with the same accounts? We have special accounts for DR. Also, would I have to set the webapp with the same URL? I am trying to set it up so that Prod and DR each have their own distinct URL
    – David Drever
    Jul 16, 2015 at 21:36
  • Same refer to...same version / build numbers...i.e if ur prod is on July cu 2015 then ur dr should be same cu level....you don't need the same url..it is conflicting with prod n cause outage....for service account, you need to make sure dr Web app pool n farm admin account had DBO rights on restored db.
    – Waqas Sarwar MVP ♦
    Jul 16, 2015 at 21:48

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