howto://upload large files to sharepoint 2010

In today’s post we’re going to help get passed the generic 404 errors that SharePoint 2010 throws your way when you go to upload large files. If you are in the right place for this post, you’ve installed SharePoint, added the BLOB service, and everything should be shiny. You can upload small files without issue, and they do go into the BLOB store. But when you try to upload, say, a 100MB video, you get spanked with a 404 that tells you practically nothing of actual value.

If you are not ‘there yet’ and are just reading ahead, check out this post on installing SharePoint 2010. Then, since BLOB storage is a much more efficient way to store Binary Large OBjects, check out Rob Garrett’s blog on Installing the Remote Blob Storage for SharePoint 2010 and SQL 2008 R2. You’re halfway there now…

What doesn’t seem obvious (a little pop up or dialog in the RBS wizard would have been nice!) is that there is more yet to do. The BLOB store (okay, it should be referred to as the RBS service, but I lurve saying BLOB in a technical context almost as much as I like to talk about thunking) is ready to receive and store large files, but there are two more places you have to configure things or you will run into that generic 404 error.

If you check your IIS logs, you will see that the generic 404 is actually a 404 13 (side note to IE9 team…add an option to display full response codes in the browser puh-leez!) which should be reported as a 413 Request Entity Too Large. In other words, you are trying to upload a file larger than the maximum that can be accepted. To actually permit larger uploads, we have to set a value in IIS and a value in SharePoint.

IIS7

1. Browse to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtualdirectories\yoursite (or where ever you store your content) and open the web.config in your favourite text editor.
2. Scroll down to the very bottom, put your cursor in front of </configuration> and hit enter to create a new line.
3. Up arrow once to get onto that blank line, and paste this in right above the </configuration>
   <system.webServer>
      <security>
            <requestFiltering>
                  <requestLimits maxAllowedContentLength="2146435072"/>
            </requestFiltering>
      </security>
</system.webServer>
4. Save the file.
5. Open an administrative command prompt, and execute
   iisreset [enter]

The value we set for maxAllowedContentLength, 2,146,435,072, is the number of bytes in 2047MB…the maximum value we can set in SharePoint. If you wish to set a smaller limit, of course you should. Just make sure that whatever you set, you match in the SharePoint configuration…which is next.

SharePoint 2010

1. Open SharePoint 2010 Central Administration.
2. Click Manage web applications under Application Management.
   
3. Select your site, and click general settings.
   
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the Web Application General Settings, and enter 2047* in the Maximum Upload Size.
   
5. Click OK, and for good measure, do another iisreset. That may not be necessary but I found it to be a good habit that has stuck with me.

*Again, you can always choose a smaller maximum size…just match what you have here (in MB) to what you put into web.config (in B.)

After that you should be double rainbows all the way. What are double rainbows you ask? If Joss Whedon is your master, if you are a Browncoat, or a fan of ABC’s Castle, then you probably want to follow @nathanfillion on Twitter. He is the only ‘celebrity’ I follow, mostly because he is just as funny in real life as he is on television. Tell him @retrohack sent you.

Direct link for RSS and email subscribers…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEpxa6EXrOw

And speaking of teh twitterz…if you found this post useful, please consider following us on twitter too. You’ll be the first to learn about new posts, and, rarely we’ll share a comedic or witty tweet. Of course, you can also leave a comment below (anonymous allowed) to let us know we hooked you up.

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Tagged as: howto, sharepoint