Portal Displays Incorrectly When You Use FQDN

After you configure your SharePoint Portal Server 2001 workspace for access by using the server's fully qualified domain name (FQDN), when you access the workspace portal, the home page may display incorrectly. The categories Web part may display "none," and other Web parts may contain a listing that is similar to the following: This problem does not occur when the workspace is accessed by using the server's network basic input/output system (NetBIOS) name.

This problem can occur because SharePoint Portal Server 2001 uses the Proxy Configuration utility (Proxycfg.exe) to configure the proxy settings that the ServerXMLHTTP component in the dashboard site uses. The proxy settings of Microsoft Internet Explorer are also used, and must be configured with the same information that is set with Proxycfg.exe.

To resolve this problem, configure the proxy settings in Internet Explorer:

1. Determine the correct proxy settings for your server. If you do not have a proxy server (you are directly connected to the Internet), you still need to perform the following steps; you must configure dummy proxy server information.
2. Open Internet Explorer on the server.
3. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
4. Click the Connections tab, and then click LAN Settings.
5. Click to clear the Automatically detect settings check box.
6. Click to select the Use a Proxy Server check box.
7. In the Address and Port boxes, type the proxy server name and port. If you use a proxy server on your network, type that information. If you do not use a proxy server, type fakeproxy for the address and 80 for the port.
8. Click to select the Bypass proxy server for local addresses check box.
9. Click Advanced. Under Exceptions, configure the proxy bypass list. If you are using a proxy server, add entries for the FQDN of the server and the domain in which the server resides. For example, if the server FQDN is server.microsoft.com, the bypass list must contain the following:
   server.microsoft.com;*microsoft.com
10. Save your settings, and then close Internet Explorer.
11. Open a command prompt window.
12. Locate the program_files\SharePoint Portal Server\Bin folder, and then type the following to copy your Internet Explorer proxy settings for use by ServerXMLHTTP:
    proxycfg -u
13. Start Internet Services Manager. Right-click the server name, and then click Restart IIS.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

The Extranet Configuration tool is available in the SharePoint Portal Server Resource Kit; the Extranet Configuration tool automates most of the extranet configuration process: