All Posts

All Posts (553)

• 

  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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• 

  Published on

  2021-03-31 10:26 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  powershellprinters

  How to change printer paper size using PowerShell?

  This article explains (with conveniently copy-pasteable code samples) how you can query your printers using PowerShell and modify properties, such as paper size, for one or more of them. This is very useful if you have multiple printers and multiple computers that you use.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-03-24 5:25 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  activedirectoryazure-ad

  Guide: How to take over and kill a viral AAD tenant?

  Rogue Azure Active Directories don't sound like a huge and widespread problem, but Microsoft's approach of generating unmanaged, viral AAD tenants whenever they encounter the tiniest reason to do so MUST be driven by some weird internal scorecard where "number of tenants" has a lot of weight, because you do get an Azure AD tenant really easily, and getting rid of one is surprisingly laborious. This guide aims to explain what's the quickest way to remove one.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-03-18 8:12 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  powershell

  Listing all of the assemblies loaded in a PowerShell session?

  In this article, I'll do my best to explain how to list all loaded assemblies in a PowerShell session. You see, PowerShell is great at caching assemblies in the weirdest possible way, so ending up with all kinds of mismatches in loaded DLL versions is pretty common. Or just being plainly blocked from loading a new one as you already have a cached reference. I mean, I've run into all kinds of issues even if I only use PowerShell occasionally. Maybe that's the reason.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-03-15 2:01 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  valo-intranet

  Of Course I Still #ValoLove You

  Long story short: My 6-year career with Valo is now coming to an end. Today was my last day at Valo. This is the longest I've ever worked at a company, and I've had the time of my life in the many positions I've held within Valo / Blue Meteorite. Rarely does a company offer you so many different possibilities and options - and let you grow into the role that you're looking to fill, with any support you might need.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-03-08 4:34 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  ef-coreentityframeworkcore

  How to fix "No database provider has been configured for this DbContext" in EF Core?

  I'm using Entity Framework in most of the projects that I'm working on - and for the most part, it's a pleasure to work with. But as always, there are plenty of chances to run into issues... So obviously, I stumbled into all of the rare stuff that IS broken! This one I hadn't really seen before: "No database provider has been configured for this DbContext" . This time I encountered the issue while setting up a new project and getting started working on the model.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-03-04 2:11 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsrobotframeworkyaml

  How to run Robot tests on an Azure DevOps hosted agent?

  This short article simply documents how to install the dependencies for running Robot Framework on Azure DevOps' hosted agents. This simple tip comes in handy when you need to run any UI testing for your project after build, as Robot Framework is a great and widely used tool for that. Let's quickly take a look at the background of the issue, after which I'm sharing a highly copy-pasteable piece of YAML for your convenience. Well - and mine.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-03-03 5:42 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azurefunctions

  "Missing value for AzureWebJobsStorage in local.settings.json" when debugging Azure Functions locally?

  Another day, another issue with Azure Functions ! For such a simple and powerful tool, it sure does produce a lot of topics for blog articles! 😁 So, in this article, I'm explaining a couple of possible reasons why you might get an error along the lines of " Missing value for AzureWebJobsStorage " when debugging Azure Functions locally. But before jumping into the solution(s), let's take a closer look at the issue at hand, shall we?

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• 

  Published on

  2021-02-24 11:34 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  gutenbergmicrosoftexcelwordpress

  How to copy-paste a table from Excel to WordPress without using plug-ins?

  So, I tried to paste a table from Excel into WordPress, and I failed. Annoying - but not a big problem. I can just paste it into an existing table and it'll "sort itself out", right? Well, no. Exporting the Excel sheet as a html page and copy-pasting the table from there didn't work either. Actually, copy-pasting a table just didn't work at all. So... WordPress is unable to understand HTML tables. Is that really it? Well, no, again, it's not.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-02-17 9:44 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  sharepointlistssharepoint-online

  How to create a new SharePoint list based on a List template (.stp)?

  New Microsoft Lists are here!. They are awesome, and a great move by Microsoft to reap even more value from the old warhorse. Wait - old warhorse? Well, behind the scenes, they're actually "just" normal SharePoint lists with a bit of added sparkles and gizmos - namely, an app, a few automations to make users' lives easier, and an application page to display the lists. Great move by Microsoft, launch quite well done, and a pretty good user experience so far. But it's not all good.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-02-08 10:24 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  sharepointlistssharepoint-online

  How to enable saving a list as a template on SharePoint Online?

  Another day, another fun little task in SharePoint Online... :) This time, I needed to be able to migrate 10 or so lists with some very specific fields and plenty of content from one site to another one. What's the best way to do that now?

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• 

  Published on

  2021-02-02 5:51 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azureazurecliazurefunctions

  How to change Azure Functions from Consumption to Premium Elastic plan?

  Sometimes, you need to change the hosting model (or tier) for your resources on Azure. Maybe you've outgrown whatever you've originally selected, maybe you've got too much cash on your hands, or maybe you're like me, and you get absolutely and completely fed up with the cold starts for your Azure Function apps on the Consumption plan and want to use the Premium Elastic plan instead. For these situations, you have the possibility of changing the hosting tier - the plan - you're on.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-01-26 9:06 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azuredevopsdevopsnugetvisual-studio

  Azure DevOps Pipelines Caching

  Azure DevOps pipelines have a pretty handy feature called Pipeline Caching . It'll help you avoid annoyingly long NuGet package restores in your builds. And that makes sense - why would you restore packages again and again and again, if you're not updating your dependencies meanwhile?

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• 

  Published on

  2021-01-20 9:00 a.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  certificatespfx

  How to recover the private key of a (.pfx) certificate?

  Recently, I ran into a problem that I definitely caused myself. I had a certificate, that was created to authenticate an app against Azure AD. The encryption key for the .pfx file was, however, lost. I could just create a new certificate, configure the app service to use that, and replace the old certificate... But that's manual labor and where's the fun in that? I prefer a solution that included a bit more coding!

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• 

  Published on

  2021-01-12 7:23 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  azurefunctions

  How to fix "System.IO.FileSystem: Could not find a part of the path - - Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'provider')", when running Azure Functions locally?

  Well, that title is a mouthful. But it's the topic for today, so what can you do? That said, this article should be pretty topical, as the issue started popping up only a few days ago. Chances are it'll be patched soon enough, but in the meantime, it's always useful to document the fix! Problem When running or debugging Azure Functions locally, your runtime just blurts our this error and fails to compile your functions: [2021-01-11T10:28:11.

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• 

  Published on

  2021-01-11 1:06 p.m.

  Authors

  koskila

  Tags

  visual-studio

  How to nuke the Identity Cache in Visual Studio?

  This article explains one easy workaround to a lot of Visual Studio authentication issues. Personally, it's helped me multiple times when Cloud Explorer has gotten into a weird authentication loop or Visual Studio stops seeing my MSDN subscription.

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