All Posts

All Posts (543)

• 

  Published on

  2021-08-24 4:11 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  ms-sql-serversqlsql-query

  How to form a parameterized SQL query to find duplicates in a table.

  So one day, I needed to quickly check if an identity field in a view in a Microsoft SQL Server was actually unique or not. I was running into weird issues with Entity Framework throwing an error somewhat like this: Store update, insert, or delete statement affected an unexpected number of rows (2) Or somewhat like this: Type: DbUpdateConcurrencyExceptionStore update, insert, or delete statement affected an unexpected number of rows ([row count]).

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• 

  Published on

  2021-08-17 4:25 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  aspnetcorejsonnetcore

  How to serialize to JSON in camelCase using .NET Core?

  This article describes how to configure your .NET Core application to serialize objects in camelCase instead of PascalCase. I guess this is another quick note - something that should be simple, but I couldn't remember how to do it from the top of my head, and the solution turned out to be a bit unintuitive. I guess that makes it worth documenting because I'll definitely run into this again. Anyway - let's take a closer look at the actual issue at hand, shall we?

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• 

  Published on

  2021-08-12 4:29 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  homeassistantlovelace

  Home Assistant - Quick and dirty fixes

  This article documents the quick and dirty fixes and patches that I have found for Home Assistant. I'm trying to document all the things that are not complicated enough to warrant an actual blog post themselves somewhere, and this page is as good a place as any. Hopefully, these tips end up being helpful to someone else as well!

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• 

  Published on

  2021-08-10 3:58 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  asp-netdotnetwebsockets

  How to secure your WebSocket connection using .NET Core?

  This article explains how to easily authenticate your WebSocket connections using .NET Core and vanilla JavaScript. The same concept probably applies to all sorts of front-end libraries, although some of them might offer some syntactic sugar on top of it. But it's simple, and keeping your implementation simple is generally speaking a good idea. So - this one came up when developing a simple API that'd expose a WebSocket endpoint for seamless notifications to the Web UI.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-08-05 2:07 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  climacellhomeassistant

  No way to renew a ClimaCell API subscription - what to do?

  One day I suddenly realized that my Home Assistant's ClimaCell integration had stopped working. That was weird - it had been running just fine for a while. I had signed up for a ClimaCell developer account at developer.tomorrow.io (or whatever the address was before rebranding from ClimaCell to Tomorrow.io - but this is the portal that I used) on the 28th of July, perhaps in 2020, or perhaps 2019. And it had worked brilliantly so far, but suddenly and without warning, it just stopped working.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-07-27 4:51 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  aspnetcorenetcorewebsockets

  HttpContext.WebSockets.IsWebSocketRequest always null in .NET Core?

  This article explains another simple fix to an annoying issue. I guess that's how I start most of my little tutorials, but hey, it's true! I suppose I just have a knack for running into issues that come with poorly documented fixes or workarounds that are obvious but only in hindsight... Right? Anyway, this time my WebSocket requests were not being handled as such by my ASP.NET Controllers. "IsWebSocketRequest" was suggested by IntelliSense, but it would always be null in the code.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-07-20 5:11 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  docker

  Docker-compose fails on Windows with "Error while fetching server API version: (2, 'CreateFile', 'The system cannot find the file specified.')"

  Once again, I come to you with a surprisingly opaque problem and offer to share my bemusingly simple solution. That should be a dedicated series on my blog - although on second thought, perhaps lobbing 90% of my articles under one tag wouldn't be helpful... 😁 Problem When running docker-compose up the command would fail, and instead, output a disgustingly long set of what looks like a whole pile of pythons engaging in quantum entanglement, that would angrily hiss at you if bothered.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-07-13 4:44 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsdevops

  Azure DevOps suddenly 404s for your project? Easy fix!

  This article explains a quick solution to a pretty common Azure DevOps problem. Namely - random and annoying 404 (or sometimes 401) errors when trying to access your dear team projects. I forgot to take screenshots of the errors and couldn't figure out how to reproduce them, but hey, the fix is the main point, right? 😀 If you've ended up on this page, you've probably encountered the issue already, so why would you care about the screenshots anyway. Solution Ok, so this is a pretty easy one.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-07-05 5:08 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  gutenbergphpmyadminwordpressyoast

  How to fix "Cannot read property 'map' of undefined (structured-data-blocks)"

  So, once again, I find myself wasting time trying to fix WordPress . Though it is a powerful platform, it's a never-ending source of grief when trying to maintain a site with a non-trivial number of plugins. Working with a static website creator would be much more fun, and there is a good chance that the site would stay up far more, but it would take considerable effort to set up Hugo or Gatsby - but we'll see. We'll see. Anyway, this time I had 2 issues with WordPress - both related to Yoast!

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• 

  Published on

  2021-06-29 2:47 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsazurefunctionsdevops

  How to update application settings of an Azure Functions App in Azure DevOps Pipeline

  This article aims to patch one annoying gap in Microsoft's documentation: how, exactly, do you update Azure Function App's application settings using an Azure DevOps build/release pipeline? It sounds easy, and something that should happen almost automatically - and for Azure Web Apps (or App Services, as they are often called) it IS practically automatic. But for Azure Functions, it isn't. And the docs aren't perfect. Let me try and fix that. Problem Azure Functions won't take your appsettings.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-06-22 5:13 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  javascriptwebsockets

  How to test a WebSocket connection in browser?

  This article documents a neat and simple way to establish and test a WebSocket connection, using just vanilla JavaScript and your favorite browser's developer tools. Quick and easy - no external tools or libraries required! This is neat because you don't want to have your information (credentials, hostnames, or even test data) leaking to outsiders hosting the tools - and using any external tools can be a bit of a drag anyway!

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• 

  Published on

  2021-06-17 6:28 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevops

  Azure DevOps throwing "Unexpected token < in JSON at position 4"

  This article documents one of the simplest solutions to one of the simplest issues you might ever encounter with Azure DevOps. Still: it's a pretty annoying one, and the solution - as simple as it is - seems worth documenting for the next time I'm googling this fervently as I'm afraid of losing my unsaved changes again...

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• 

  Published on

  2021-06-15 4:04 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  microsoftofficemicrosoftword

  How to copy a table in Microsoft Word (Office app)?

  This article will document a super simple solution to an infuriating and stupid issue you might run into in Microsoft Office Word. Or maybe you might not, but I did. Can you tell I'm just sharing my own pains and whatever I needed to google and didn't find a solution for? Yeah, another one of these. But hey - maybe that'll be useful to someone else, too! Problem Long story short - copy-pasting this: Becomes this: WHAT - that's not a table. That's just weirdly spaced text in neat-ish columns.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-06-08 6:25 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuresqlsqlservermanagementstudiossms

  How to (easily) move data between SQL databases

  Every now and then, you will run into a situation where you need to overwrite a database's contents with those of another database. Maybe you'll need to update a staging environment with a partial data import from production, or perhaps you have a new developer coming in who needs some data - I don't know. But this should be a run-of-the-mill action. Something you can do in a minute. The bottom line is - this shouldn't be complicated. And it should be documented really well.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-05-31 4:51 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  logicappmicrosoftflow

  How to fix a Logic App deployment that failed with error "UsageConfigurationNotSupportedInSubscription"?

  This article explains a quick and dirty fix when you get an error somewhat like this: "UsageConfigurationNotSupportedInSubscription" when you're deploying an Azure Logic App from a template. The same fix will probably apply to a number of other issues - but don't hold me accountable for this :) Anyway - on to the topic of the day! Problem Can you tell by some of my recent blog posts that I've been deploying a few Logic Apps recently?

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• 

  Published on

  2021-05-25 2:44 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azureazure-adazurecli

  How to add an user or group to multiple Azure resources at once?

  This article describes a solution to an age-old question of mine: how can I add an Azure Active Directory object - like a security group - to multiple resource groups at once? I've had to do this multiple times, and manual work takes quite a while. And who likes multiple manual steps?

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• 

  Published on

  2021-05-17 5:54 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  powershell

  Solving "Unable to find repository 'https://www.powershellgallery.com/api/v2'."

  So, you're running a PowerShell command that requires a connection to PowerShell gallery, but you run into an error message, somewhat like this: "Unable to find repository 'https://www.powershellgallery.com/api/v2'. This can happen when you're running something like Install-Module or Update-Module . This pretty much blocks you from doing anything that would require the use of new modules - so, quite a lot. Worth fixing, then.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-05-10 8:58 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  logicappmicrosoftflowpowerautomate

  How to move your Microsoft PowerAutomate Flow to Logic Apps?

  This article explains how you can export a Microsoft Power Automate Flow from, well, Microsoft Power Automate, and nicely and easily import it to Azure Logic Apps. I'll explain the process step-by-step, and also explain solutions to a few hurdles you might run into! But first, let's take a look at why you might want to consider taking this step in the first place, shall we? Why move to Logic Apps? Ah, a valid question.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-05-04 5:03 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  rcc

  Resolving an incredibly pointless struggle with RCC

  Okay, this might be my least general, and overall most pointless article ever, but I felt the need to document it anyway. Maybe it'll help someone with a similar gadget, despite being a bit off-topic on this blog. Apologies to any regular visitors! So, what am I talking about, then? Recently I bought a radio-controlled projector clock as a gift for my wife.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-04-29 3:21 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  netframeworksharepoint-onlinewcf

  How to force an outdated .NET project to use TLS 1.2?

  This article explains a kind of weird fix to a pretty annoying issue with a legacy service. And I'm not just calling it legacy because it's WCF - I'm calling it legacy because it's old. The particular piece of software was developed about 7 years ago (2014-ish)! It had worked for quite a while - but now it was down. I know, I know - 2014 is not THAT old. There's surely COBOL that's been running since the 70s, if not before.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-04-22 8:02 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azureazurearmlogicappmicrosoftflow

  How to fix a Logic App deployment that failed with the error "ApiNotFound"?

  This article explains a quick and dirty fix when you get an error somewhat like " ApiNotFound " when you're deploying an Azure Logic App from a template. This seems to be a very typical hurdle to run into when you're trying to deploy a PowerAutomate Flow you've exported. I guess despite being built on the same platform, Flow developers took some liberties and the migration is not quite as painless as one would hope... :) Anyway - on to the topic of the day!

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• 

  Published on

  2021-04-21 11:46 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  dotnetlocalization

  Experiment: DateTime formats

  This article explains how to loop through all supported cultures on any given machine that's able to run .NET. The code sample is in C# and outputs an HTML table you can copy - but obviously you can adapt it to your needs! This was something I needed to support some weird documentation task way back when - and it took me like a year to finish this blog post and push it out from the drafts... Background Okay.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-04-15 8:17 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azurelogicapppowerautomate

  How to fix "LinkedAuthorizationFailed" when deploying an Azure Logic App?

  This article explains one possible fix to "LinkedAuthorizationFailed" when you're deploying a Logic App from an Azure Automation template. Maybe it'll apply to other cases, too - but in my case, it helped me fix a broken template I had exported from Power Automate and was bringing into Logic Apps. Problem So, another fun issue to solve! The actual error you run into might be something along these lines: The client has permission to perform action 'Microsoft.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-04-13 9:22 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  msbuildvisual-studiovisualstudio2019

  How to fix a build configuration that's not available as a build directive in Visual Studio?

  This article describes how to fix and tweak your pre-build directives in Visual Studio - just in case they refuse to work properly. Because yeah, apparently that sometimes just randomly happens. But fear not - there's a stupid and ugly, but definitely thoughtful workaround available! Also, sorry for the confusing title. I'm taking suggestions for a more descriptive one - but this one was kind of difficult to word clearly. Anyway - on to the topic of the day!

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• 

  Published on

  2021-04-08 2:33 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsnuget

  How to access invisible packages in Azure DevOps artifact feed?

  Let's go with a very simple "note-to-self" kind of a blog post today. Plenty of those to go around on this blog, and I am sure that there will be plenty more! This one is another case that should be really obvious, but isn't, and should just work, but doesn't. Namely, when you have run a pipeline in Azure DevOps expecting it to publish a package in your internal NuGet feed so that all of your friends can use it.

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