Running WeBlog with Solr

[kalotra]

Hello.

Is it possible to run weblog with Solr? We're running Sitecore 8.1 Update 1 and using Solr and WeBlog conflicts with it. Any thoughts around this would be very helpful.

[alan-null]

Hi @kalotra
I don't know if anybody from the team ever tested it.
Current content search configuration has Lucene configuration only.
We would have to investigate that.

[adeneys]

Can you specify the nature of the conflict?

As @alan-null mentioned, the OOTB content search configuration for WeBlog is based on the Lucene content search configuration. If you've swapped your solution over to use SOLR then you'll need to adjust the WeBlog content search configuration to use SOLR as well. This shouldn't be too hard as the config is pretty basic, leveraging the default provider config for most things.

[kalotra]

Hello.
We decided to stick to Lucene for the content search so no problem with WeBlog now. However, we're having an issue submitting comment on PROD CD server. DEV CA/CD works fine. PROD CA works fine as well, but submitting comments from PROD CD returns following error:

"The request for security token could not be satisfied because authentication failed."

The configuration is same across servers accept the fact that PROD CD is running over https://. I can access http://[authoring server address]/sitecore modules/web/WeBlog/Comment.svc from PROD CD server. However, submitting comments from the CD node returns above error. I have advised the network team to double check access between servers. Meanwhile, I'd appreciate any idea/suggestions from your side.

[adeneys]

The above issue is unrelated to SOLR, so please open a new issue for it.

I'll leave this current issue open until we add a SOLR specific config file.

[PavanOS]

If anyone wants SOLR configuration I did it and indexing worked for me. Shared the changed configuration, please download the attached file and remove .TXT extension
WeBlog.ContentSearch.config.txt

[SMRaxa]

Hi Pavan,
I used your configuration file to switch to Solr but its not working, Its not indexing the contents of blog and Blog posts are not displaying, I checked all configurations and everything seems fine but I don't know where I made mistake and its not showing up. I am using WeBlog 3.0 and Sitecore 8.2 XP. Sitecore search with Solr is working fine, can you please let me know how can I troubleshoot. Thank you.

[SMRaxa]

Please find below the config files converted to Solr search, I really need to fix this issue, please help me.

WeBlog.config.zip

[hptbee]

Anyone fixed this issue ?

[PavanOS]

I did debug this issue a while ago , looks like the Solr query being sent by weblog code has issue, so it is not working even configs are right. So waiting for code fix.

[SMRaxa]

Yes, you are right. I also debugged it and got the same issue, so I copied the code of weblog and updated all of its queries into my solution.

[PavanOS]

SMRaxa, that's awesome. Can you please share the weblog code that you changed. You can email it to me at pavanomtri@yahoo.com

[hptbee]

I had change config, and solr can work in admin site.
But on page Blog in user site error.
Inner Exception: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: fieldNameTranslator.

@SMRaxa Can you share it here or send to my mail hptbee@gmail.com ? Thanks you very much.

[SMRaxa]

I copied the GetBlogEnteries method from WeBlog solution and added it into my solution and updated it as below. I created my own controller/action which calls this method to fetch blog entries and then render the view.

`public IEnumerable GetBlogEntries(string tag, string category, int maxNumber = MaxPosts, DateTime? minimumDate = null, DateTime? maximumDate = null)
{

        var blog = Sitecore.Context.Database.Items[Templates.BlogHome.BlogId];//Blog ID
        

        List<EntryItem> result = new List<EntryItem>();
        var indexName = String.Format("sitecore_{0}_index", Sitecore.Context.Database.Name);

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(indexName))
        {

            using (var context = ContentSearchManager.GetIndex(indexName).CreateSearchContext(SearchSecurityOptions.DisableSecurityCheck))
            {
                var builder = PredicateBuilder.True<EntryResultItem>();

                //var id = customBlogItem.BlogSettings.EntryTemplateID;
                builder = builder.And(i => i.TemplateId == Templates.BlogEntry.BlogEntry);
                builder = builder.And(i => i.Paths.Contains(blog.ID));
                builder = builder.And(i => i.Language.Equals(blog.Language.Name, StringComparison.InvariantCulture));
                builder = builder.And(item => item.DatabaseName.Equals(Context.Database.Name, StringComparison.InvariantCulture));

                // Tag
                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(tag))
                {
                    builder = builder.And(i => i.Tags.Contains(tag));
                }

                // Categories
                // This search is not working so I commented it for now, will check it later
                //if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(category))
                //{
                //    var categoryItem = ManagerFactory.CategoryManagerInstance.GetCategory(blog, category);

                //    // If the category is unknown, don't return any results.
                //    if (categoryItem == null)
                //        return new EntryItem[0];
                //    /*#if SC70
                //                            var normalizedID = Sitecore.ContentSearch.Utilities.IdHelper.NormalizeGuid(categoryItem.ID);
                //                            builder = builder.And(i => i.Category.Contains(normalizedID));
                //    #else*/
                //    builder = builder.And(i => i.Category.Contains(categoryItem.ID));
                //    //#endif

                //}

                

                if (minimumDate != null)
                    builder = builder.And(i => i.EntryDate >= minimumDate);

                if (maximumDate != null)
                    builder = builder.And(i => i.EntryDate < maximumDate);

                var indexresults = context.GetQueryable<EntryResultItem>().Where(builder);

                if (indexresults.Any())
                {
                    var itemResults = indexresults.Select(indexresult => indexresult.GetItem()).ToList();

                    //The above category filter was not working so I commented above and used this way because don't have time to configure index
                    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(category))
                    {
                        itemResults = itemResults.Where(item => GetCategories(item).Any(x => x.ToLower().Contains(category.ToLower()))).ToList();
                    }

                    result = itemResults.Where(item => item != null).Select(i => new EntryItem(i)).ToList();
                    result = result.OrderByDescending(post => post.EntryDate.DateTime).ThenBy(post => post.Created).Take(maxNumber).ToList();
                }
            }
        }

        return result.ToList();
    }`