SharePoint 2013 October 2017 CU - Dont update

We updated our SharePoint 2013 server to October 2017 CU and now have issue creating site collection from Central Admin. however still can create site collection from powershell. 
Getting error as: UserProfileApplicationNotAvailableException_Logging :: UserProfileApplicationProxy.GetRawPartitionID has null proxy

Import Term Store with Same GUID - SharePoint 2013

Recently i was tasked to import the term-store to different environment and below are the steps to Import TermStore with same GUID as source system.

 To Export

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell
 $metadataApp= Get-SpServiceApplication | ? {$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service"}
 $mmsAppId = $metadataApp.Id

$mmsproxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ?{$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service Connection"}
 Export-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData -Identity $mmsAppId -ServiceProxy $mmsproxy -Path "C:\TermStore.cab”

To Import

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell
 $metadataApp= Get-SpServiceApplication | ? {$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service"}
 $mmsAppId = $metadataApp.Id

$mmsproxy = Get-SPServiceApplicationProxy | ?{$_.TypeName -eq "Managed Metadata Service Connection"}

Import-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData -Identity $mmsAppId -ServiceProxy $mmsproxy -Path "\\SharedPath\TermStore.cab" -OverwriteExisting;

Few issues you would face during import:

Import-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData : Cannot bulk load because the file

"\\SharedPath\5460e56e7338462699857df67766a557\ECMGroup.dat" could not be opened. Operating system error code 5(Access is denied.). At line:1 char:1

Solution: Make sure account you are running the import script has "bulkadmin DB role".

Import-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData : Cannot bulk load because the file "\\SharedPath\ed95fa1e4975464195b62f16f4de5ba9\ECMGroup.dat" could not be opened. Operating

system error code 3(The system cannot find the path specified.).

At line:1 char:1

or 

Import-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData : Cannot bulk load because the file "\\SharedPath\18e85ecec7764f60a03ac0427e4eb1ba\ECMGroup.dat" could not be opened.

Operating system error code 5(Access is denied.).

At line:1 char:1

Solution:  SQL account is not able to extract the cab and do bulk upload. so place the cab file in sql server box networkshare. 

Render special character '&' as html In SharePoint 2010 Menu

Today I was working with one of the designer in my company on Flyout Menu for one of or new SharePoint 2010 site. Since some of the page title had special characters like '&' (&), the SharePoint Menu was rendering with special character  (&)

The solution is to add EncodeTitle="false" in the AspMenu control as below.

<SharePoint:AspMenu ID="CurrentNav" runat="server" 
   datasourceID="SiteMapDS" 
   orientation="Vertical" 
   StaticDisplayLevels="2" 
   MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels="0" 
   StaticSubMenuIndent="1" 
   ItemWrap="true" 
   UseSimpleRendering="true"
   AccessKey="3" 
   SkipLinkText=""
   EncodeTitle="false"></SharePoint:AspMenu>
    <PublishingNavigation:PortalSiteMapDataSource ID="SiteMapDS" Runat="server" 
   SiteMapProvider="CurrentNavSiteMapProvider" 
   EnableViewState="true" 
   StartFromCurrentNode="true" 
   StartingNodeOffset="0" 
   ShowStartingNode="false" 
   TrimNonCurrentTypes="Heading"/>

Hide Empty Divs

This post is for my Reference to comeback when its required :)
Problem:
So if you have a page and have div tags which are empty and some styles are applied on it, It would take some padding and margin around it and the page layout will look bad.
Solution:
jQuery:

$('div').filter(function() {
  return $.trim($(this).text()) === ''
}).remove()

Can see the Implementation in: JSFiddle 

System.ArgumentException when you create SharePoint 2013 Claims Based Site

Recently We were implementing SharePoint 2013 for one of our client. The requirement was quite simple and we were using all out of the box feature. Then when we create the team site it came as a surprise for as it dint work.

Problem:
We got "Exception of type 'System.ArgumentException' was thrown. Parameter name: encodedValue" error on creation of Claims based site (Which is default when you create site from central admin UI). When we looked at the stack trace  it was pointing at the issue with "Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.SPClaimEncodingManager.DecodeClaimSuffix(String encodedValue) +600". After debugging for some days we found out that the issue is with STSToken issuer.

Solution:
SharePoint 2013 make use of STS webservice for authentication. If you want to check if STS is able to issue the security token, please execute the PowerShell script. if you get the token back then STS is working fine.
$farm = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm]::Local
$webServiceCollection = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebServiceCollection($farm)
foreach ($service in $webServiceCollection)
{
    foreach ($webApp in $service.WebApplications)
    {
        $firstWebApp = $webApp
        #Get the context
        $context = $firstWebApp.GetResponseUri([Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPUrlZone]::Default)
        Write-Host "Web Application Context:" $context.AbsoluteUri
        #Call the token generator function
        $token = [Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurityContext]::SecurityTokenForContext($context)
        Write-Host "Token:" $token.InternalTokenReference
        Write-Host "**************************"

    }
}
It turns out the core issue is about policy setting in domain level, the "System cryptography: Use FIPS compliant algorithms for encryption, hashing, and signing" is blocking the authentication. To check the stats of the policy, go to Local Security Policy > Local Policy > Security Option. The FIPS policy should be in disabled mode, if it's not, ask your network team to make changes to disable the FIPS.

 Once this is done, re-provision the STS using below script:
stsadm -o provisionservice -action start -servicetype "Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Claims.SPSecurityTokenService, Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" -servicename SecurityTokenService

After this your STS should function properly.

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