Unable to delete columns in lists and document libraries as well as survey questions
Hi All, I'm having trouble deleting columns from lists as well as document libraries. The situation remains the same for both new and existing lists or libraries. I'm even unable to delete questions in surveys. In all three situations, I keep getting the same error: Unable to validate data. at System.Web.Configuration.MachineKeySection.GetDecodedData(Byte[] buf, Byte[] modifier, Int32 start, Int32 length, Int32& dataLength) at System.Web.UI.ObjectStateFormatter.Deserialize(String inputString) I've searched everywhere and still unable to find an answer to this problem. Anyone know what I can do to get around this? Thanks. Des.
March 4th, 2010 6:53am

According to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829743/en-us, this issue can often be caused by leaving the validationKey attribute set to AutoGenerate in the Machine.config file in a load balanced web farm. Instead, you must set the value of the validationKey attribute to a fixed string that is shared by all the machines on the Web farm. Please refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998288.aspx for more about validationkey. And, according to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928028 , this issue occurs if SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is not installed on the same drive on each load-balanced front-end server in the server farm.
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March 9th, 2010 12:04pm

I've just checked the validationKey and can confirm that it is not set to AutoGenerate and it is actually using a fixed string. And for your second point about load balanced servers, the server farm is not load balanced but if it was the installation of wss 3.0 is installed on the same drive. C:\ Any other ideas?
March 31st, 2010 3:06am

I've had another look at this issue and found that if I disable the 'Office Server Enterprise Search' and 'Office Server Site Search' features in central admin (Central Administration > Application Management > Manage Web application features), the problem goes away and I'm able to delete columns again. As soon as I re-activate these features and try to delete a column I get the errors again. The environment I am working on is currently using WSS 3.0 which was then upgraded with Search Server Express. Any other suggestions as to why this is happening
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August 5th, 2010 4:48am

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