The “Shared Services Provider (SSP) not available” error in SharePoint (2007/2010 On-Premises) occurs when the Shared Services Provider (SSP) is either misconfigured, unavailable, or has been deleted/corrupted. The SSP is a critical component responsible for services like Search, Profiles, Excel Services, and Business Data Catalog (BDC).

This guide provides detailed troubleshooting steps to resolve the issue.

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1. Understand the Error Message

Before troubleshooting, check the exact error message in:

• Central Administration → Shared Services Administration.
• SharePoint UI → Site Collection Administration.
• Event Viewer (eventvwr.msc) → Windows Logs > Application.
• ULS Logs (For Correlation ID errors): Get-SPLogEvent | Where-Object {$_.Correlation -eq "<your-correlation-id>"} | Format-List

Common error variations:

• “Shared Services Provider not available”
• “No available SSP to serve this request”
• “Cannot connect to the Shared Services Provider”

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2. Check SSP Availability in Central Administration

1. Open SharePoint Central Administration.
2. Navigate to Shared Services Administration.
3. Check if the SSP is listed.
   • If not listed, it may have been deleted or is corrupted.
   • If listed but marked as unavailable, it may be misconfigured.

Fix: Reassociate SSP with Web Application

If SSP is unavailable, reassociate it manually:

1. Open Central Administration.
2. Go to Application Management → Web Application Settings.
3. Select the correct SSP from the dropdown and save.

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3. Check IIS and App Pools for SSP

If the SSP site is not accessible, check IIS settings.

Verify IIS Settings

1. Open IIS Manager (inetmgr).
2. Locate the SSP Web Application (e.g., SSPAdmin or similar).
3. Ensure the App Pool is running.
4. Restart the SSP-related App Pool: iisreset /restart

Verify SSP Service Accounts

1. In IIS Manager, right-click the SSP Application Pool.
2. Click Advanced Settings and check the Identity.
3. Ensure the service account has proper permissions.

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4. Check Database Connection for SSP

If SSP databases are unavailable, SharePoint cannot connect to the provider.

Verify Database Connection

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).
2. Check if the SSP Database (e.g., SharedServices_DB) exists.
3. Ensure the SharePoint service account has access to the database. SELECT name FROM sys.databases WHERE name LIKE '%SharedServices%'

Fix: Update Connection Strings

If the database was moved or renamed, update SharePoint settings:

Set-SPDatabase -Identity "SSP_Database_Name" -Server "NewDatabaseServer"

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5. Restart Services and Timer Job

If SSP is misconfigured, restart SharePoint services.

Restart Key Services

Restart-Service SPTimerV4
Restart-Service OSearch
Restart-Service SPAdmin

Clear Configuration Cache

1. Stop the SharePoint Timer Service (SPTimerV4).
2. Navigate to: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\GUID-folder\
3. Delete all XML files except cache.ini.
4. Open cache.ini, change the value to 1, and save.
5. Restart SPTimerV4.

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6. Create a New Shared Services Provider (If Needed)

If SSP is permanently corrupted, create a new one.

Create New SSP in SharePoint 2007/2010

1. Open Central Administration → Shared Services Administration.
2. Click New Shared Services Provider.
3. Enter details:
   • SSP Name (e.g., SharedServices_New).
   • Database Server.
   • Service Account.
4. Click Create.

Reassociate Web Applications with New SSP

Once the new SSP is created:

1. Navigate to Web Application Settings.
2. Assign the new SSP to the existing web applications.

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7. Verify Service Application Connections (For SharePoint 2010+)

For SharePoint 2010 and later, SSP was replaced with Service Applications.

Check Service Applications

1. Open Central Administration.
2. Navigate to Manage Service Applications.
3. Ensure the required services (Search, User Profile, BCS, Excel, etc.) are running.
4. Restart any failed services: Get-SPServiceInstance | Where-Object {$_.Status -eq "Disabled"} | Start-SPServiceInstance

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8. Contact Microsoft Support

If the issue persists:

• Provide ULS Logs, Event Viewer logs, and SQL logs.
• If SSP is corrupted, consider restoring from a backup.

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