SharePoint Servers with underscores. Trouble ahead.

SharePoint_Server_Name = Trouble_Ahead

I recently had a friend of mine ask for some SharePoint 2013 troubleshooting help. It seemed that the server was running fine (Single Server Farm) but trying to configure a Secure Store Target Application for Excel Services that was causing grief.

 The error message was "Your session has expired. Restart this wizard to continue."

The Correlation ID has a few errors, but one in particular stated "_admin/sssvc/managetargetapplicationinstance.aspx' doesn't match the Page '_admin/sssvc/managetargetapplicationfields.aspx" which in itself is not very useful. 
But looking more into that error and noticing the server name is sharepoint_dev a light went on and a feeling of dread for said friend. SharePoint doesn't like underscores in server names, especially service apps on a single server farm where Central Admin is using the server name as the URL. 

You have two options really. 

  1. You can rebuild your server and give it a name without underscores.
  2. Give your Content web apps and Central Admin web app Alternate Access Mappings. You may need to recreate some service apps based on past experience. (My past experience has been with a lot of terrible system design that I always seem to inherit/troubleshoot.)

For a refresher, there are characters SharePoint you cannot use in site names, folders and files. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/905231. Typical end user errors when using them, but nice to know.

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