sharepoint showing error after uploading a new webpart

Question

I am new to Sharepoint and was playing with the webparts. I downloaded a zip file called LyteBoxForSharePoint and uploaded the webpart using add a web part function. Now I am getting errors. The good thing is, that it's only my dept page. The bad thing is I have no clue what happened. All other pages beside the dept landing page is working. So, I am guessing it's only the landing page that has the issue. Is there a way to find out what code was added or to revert to old code. The error I get is the following, and it keeps on changing every time I refresh the page.

An unexpected error has occurred.
Troubleshoot issues with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.
Correlation ID: e8eca359-70f9-42d0-b41e-834fbe0fc910
Date and Time: 2/23/2012 2:47:39 PM  

Answer 1

Could be anything, most common error in SharePoint is authentication errors where a web part is trying to reach content the logged in user cannot reach

You should check the logs, they are available in the directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS

Open the last modified log file and search for your Correlation ID, e8eca359-70f9-42d0-b41e-834fbe0fc910

When you find the errors there you will now and also be able to post something that we can use to help you.

Then there is always the webpart maintenance page: /_layouts/spcontnt.aspx?url= http://sharepointserver.com/_layouts/spcontnt.aspx?url=default.aspx

Answer 2

Rex,

first browse the page which is giving webpart error and copy the new correlation id and go to the log folder under 14 hive and open the latest log file and find the correlation id. it should give you the error details if logging is not disabled.

also you can go to the webpart manger on the page to revert the page to the previous state by adding contents=1 as query string and in this page you will get list of webparts with checkbox against each. select the faulty one and revert to previous version if any or delete it.

you can also use SPD2010 to remove the webpart with error. alternating powershell can be also used.

Answer 3

One way to check if the webpart is installed is to type ?contents=1 after your url. There is also stsadm -o preupgradecheck and unfortunitely stsadm has another command to list all webparts but I cannot think of it at this time