Source: http://epmsource.com/2011/07/16/project-demo-imageexcel-services-problem-after-sp1-upgrade
If you are using the 2010 Information Worker Demonstration and Evaluation Virtual Machine http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27417
Update: A couple of readers have pointed out that this behaviour is is the norm where there isn’t a root site and it’s best practice to implement one. I totally agree and have run into situations where things like InfoPath have ceased to work due to this. The purpose of this post is more for those people that run into this error in the demo image, after an upgrade and can’t figure out why. It took me a little while to track it down, so I just through I would share.
I am posting this in case anyone else runs into a similar problem in Excel Services and to give some search engine index bait.
Following upgrading my IW demo image to SP1 + June CU, I noticed that Excel Services components in the Business Intelligence centre were no longer rendering and consistently showing the loading graphic.
On closer inspection, the browser was showing the following error:
Message: Syntax error
Line: 1
Char: 1
Code: 0
URI: http://project.contoso.com/_layouts/EwaStringsHandler.ashx/en-US?rev=V5cXKzVnvQRpcOxdnGD5cQ%3D%3D&flh=4sHCQGJUaMtQCBbbV6EmZw==
Checking the ULS logs showed these error messages:
An internal error occurred. at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.MossHost.MossHost.Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.Host. IEwaHost.IsSecureConnection() at Microsoft.Office.Excel.WebUI.EwaCUIDataSource.EnsureDocument() at Microsoft.Web.CommandUI.CUIDataSource.RunQuery(UIQuery query) at Microsoft.Office.Excel.WebUI.EwaRibbon.QueryRibbonDataSource(CultureInfo uiCulture, String clientID, Boolean denormalizeImareUri) at Microsoft.Office.Excel.WebUI.EwaStringsHandler.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
and
Watson bucket parameters: SharePoint Server 2010, ULSException14, 5f9be61a “excel services application”, 0e00178d “14.0.6029.0″, f5b5c9d6 “microsoft.office.excel.server.mosshost”, 0e001785 “14.0.6021.0″, 4d65e5e7 “wed feb 23 21:00:23 2011″, 000002d3 “000002d3″, MISSING, 4a6d3421 “nullreferenceexception”, 66326e39 “f2n9″
It seems that Excel Services now needs a site collection to be present in the root of the a web application or it will throw the above error. I am not sure when this behaviour changed, but given the IW Demo Image and Project Demo and Evaluation pack does not install a site at http://project.contoso.com it is necessary to create a blank site collection via Central Admin manually.
Once this is done, the Business Intelligence Centre should start to render the Excel Services components once again.
David J Steele 