Issues with Sharepoint Connector for Confluence

[Lancy Quadros]

So far, our experience with the Sharepoint Connector for Confluence is a hit or miss. Within a same site, I am able to pull one list, but I am not able to pull another. I am wondering, are there any do's and don'ts when it comes to picking the lists that needs to be pulled in to Confluence?

Currently, I have a situation where a list from one site is pulled in correctly, but when I try to pull a list with the same name from another site, the macro displays the error:

In Confluence 3.5.7: sp-list: Unable to retrieve list <list name>

In Confluence 4.1: Error rendering macro {sp-list}: Unable to retrieve list <list name>

The logs show the error:

In Confluence 3.5.7:

2012-01-23 11:53:25,253 ERROR [http-8080-16] [extra.sharepoint.macros.SharePointListMacroRenderer] getColumns Unable to retrieve list <list name>
-- url: /confluence/pages/rendercontent.action | userName: QuadrosL | referer: <referring URL> | action: rendercontent
java.lang.RuntimeException: javax.xml.ws.WebServiceException: org.apache.cxf.binding.soap.SoapFault: Error reading XMLStreamReader.

In Confluence 4.1:

2012-01-23 11:25:53,034 ERROR [http-8080-5] [extra.sharepoint.macros.SharePointListMacroRenderer] getColumns Unable to retrieve list <list name>
-- url: /confluencetest/rest/tinymce/1/macro/preview | userName: <username>| referer: <referring URL> java.lang.RuntimeException: javax.xml.ws.WebServiceException: org.apache.cxf.binding.soap.SoapFault: Error reading XMLStreamReader.

[Lancy Quadros · Accepted solution]

It turns out that the spaces in site names need to be encoded and the list names need not. For example, if you have site named 'X Files' and a list named 'Project X' within it. To reference that list in the macro, you would refernce it as 'X%20Files/Project X'.

[Camden Coyle]

Another thing that may cause this problem is if the number of Lookup and/or Managed Metadata columns in your list exceeds the limit defined by SharePoint's List View Lookup Threshold setting.

We have a fairly complex metadata scheme on one of our lists (36 managed metadata and lookup columns). Our SharePoint group has set the List View Lookup Threshold setting to 25 for performance reasons. At that setting, we are unable to embed the list. We raised it to 50 for testing purposes and were able to embed the list. Unfortunately, that setting is not a long term option for performance reasons. Note that Microsoft's recommended setting is 8. Lots of information on this setting if you search for it.

There is potentially a way around this setting via a ListQueryThrottle Override mode and Confluence is looking into incorporating this in a future release of the connector. Vote for and follow the improvement request here SharePoint list macro failed to render a big list from SharePoint.

[Richard Scorgie]

You may have already done this but check your firewalls.

[Lancy Quadros]

No issues with the firewall - they are all internal trusted sites.