EventReceiver not Firing on SharePoint List

Question

I am trying to create an EventReceiver for a blog site (for the Posts list) and am having some trouble getting it working. I want to change the Created By column to Anonymous. Basically I have this whole thing working in a console application, however, that will only change the Created By column names when the console application is executed.

I need it to change the Created By whenever a new item is added to the list. My code is below....how do I modify this to use in an EventReceiver project??? Since I already tell the EventReceiver project the URL I want the EventReceiver attached to, I'm not sure what I can remove from this code, right now it just doesn't do anything, no error and no changing of the Created By column when I debug.

   using (SPSite site = new SPSite("http://test-sharepoint/subsite/")) 
   { 
       using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()) 
       { 
           SPList list = web.Lists["Posts"]; 
           SPListItemCollection listItemCollection = list.Items; 

           foreach (SPListItem listItem in listItemCollection) 
           { 
               SPFieldUserValue userName = new SPFieldUserValue(web, 22, "Anonymous");
                listItem["Author"] = userName; 
               listItem["Editor"] = userName; 

               listItem.Update(); 
           } 
           web.Update(); 
       } 
    }

EDIT: Code is in ItemAdded method

EDIT #2: This is trying the same code except without the loop and using properties.ListItem, this was my attempt in a Event Recevier project but no luck. It just doesn't change the Created By field, or any field for that matter (I tried the Title as well)

       SPSite site = new SPSite("http://test-sharepoint/subsite/");
       SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();
       SPFieldUserValue userName = new SPFieldUserValue(web, 22, "Anonymous");

       properties.ListItem["Author"] = userName;
       properties.ListItem["Editor"] = userName;
       properties.ListItem.Update();

*Also from my understanding the SPFieldUserValue will grab either a User or a SharePoint User Group (Permissions) so in my code, the 22 grabs the SharePoint User Group that I want and "Anonymous" is the user from that group...

EDIT #3: More progress, this code works without issues for a list, however, not for the Posts or Comments lists, for those it does not change the Created By field. Could it be because of the approve/reject for all items??? Whether approved orpending it still does not show annonymous, BUT like I mentioned, it works fine in a different list.

   public override void ItemAdded(SPItemEventProperties properties)
   {
       base.ItemAdded(properties);

       SPSite site = new SPSite("http://test-sharepoint/hr/blog/"); //SPContext.Current.Site;
       SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();
       SPFieldUserValue userName = new SPFieldUserValue(web,22,"Anonymous");

       SPListItem currentItem = properties.ListItem;
       //currentItem["Title"] = userName;  //DateTime.Now.ToString();
       currentItem["Author"] = userName;
       currentItem["Editor"] = userName;
       currentItem.SystemUpdate();
   }

**EDIT #4: Alright I found my issue, when creating the project I chose Custom List as my list to attach to but I needed to choose Posts or Comments and now the above code works!!!

But now I have another problem, all posts on the blog are first submitted for approval...and due to this the event receiver doesn't seem to work for users other than the admin. It works fine for the admin account where I can just directly publish a post or comment but for a user with Contribute permissions whose posts are submitted for approval still shows their name on the Manage Posts page...what could I do about this? Any ideas?**

The code that works:

   public override void ItemAdded(SPItemEventProperties properties)
   {
       base.ItemAdded(properties);

       SPSite site = new SPSite("http://test-sharepoint/hr/blog/"); //SPContext.Current.Site;
       SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb();
       SPFieldUserValue userName = new SPFieldUserValue(web, 23, "Anonymous");

       SPListItem currentItem = properties.ListItem;
       currentItem["Author"] = userName;
       currentItem["Editor"] = userName;
       currentItem.SystemUpdate();
   }

Try to follow this guide to see if you have performed all the steps mentioned there: dotnetcurry.com/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=649. Another thing is that you could modify your code to use ListItem (or ListItemId) from properties parameter you should have available in ItemAdded event receiver. This way you could avoid updating all items each time. — Lukasz M
Thanks for the reply, I did actually try using properties.ListItem instead of iterating through all items but it still doesn't work. I will paste my code for that in the original post... — Tudor Hofnar
Is the code actually running, but not changing the fields' values and you can debug it? If so, verify with debugger if no exception is thrown and all the lines are run. I also suppose that SPFieldUserValue constructor with 3 parameters should take both id and value of the same lookup user to target. Try to change it into SPFieldUserValue userName = new SPFieldUserValue(web, "Anonymous");. Anonymous user should be added to SharePoint users directly (it probably won't work if you add only AD group he's in, but not the user himself). — Lukasz M
I've actually tried with the user as either added to SHarePoint users directly as well as within a SharePoint group but nothing. Funny thing is that if I just simply do this --properties.ListItem["Title"] = "Test Title"; properties.ListItem.Update();-- it works and changes the title, the problem is that it does not work for the Created By column of the list. The debugger goes through all lines I believe and no exceptions, however, I can't place breakpoints as they say no symbols loaded, and I've tried a lot of posts to fix that but nothing has worked. Any other ideas? — Tudor Hofnar
Thanks Lukasz! I have it working on the list now, but only if I am in the admin role. Since regular users need to submit a post for approval before its published, it will show their name when they post However, since I am an admin, I can automatically publish my post and the name does not show up, it says Anonymous. Is there something else I need to account for so that regular users will appear as Anonymous too? Any ideas for this? — Tudor Hofnar

Ryan Prechel Ryan Prechel · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-23T15:01:06

In response to edit #4, when working with SharePoint, if code works when executed by the administrator account, but does not work when executed by a "normal" account, permissions are likely to blame.

See the answer to the question SharePoint/WSS: Modify “created by” field? for an example of an SPItemEventReceiver that modifies the Author field.

Note: Many SharePoint developers recommend against the use of RunWithElevatedPrivileges and suggest using impersonation instead. See my answer to the question In which situation use SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges with superusertoken? for more details.

EventReceiver not Firing on SharePoint List

1 Answers