{"id":627,"date":"2010-04-10T13:35:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-10T13:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brainlitter.itgroove.net\/2010\/04\/10\/stsadm-and-command-is-invalid\/"},"modified":"2010-04-10T13:35:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-10T13:35:00","slug":"stsadm-and-command-is-invalid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regroove.ca\/brainlitter\/2010\/04\/10\/stsadm-and-command-is-invalid\/","title":{"rendered":"STSADM and “command is invalid”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hey folks,<\/p>\n

I’ve seen this enough that it warranted blogging about it specifically. Here’s the deal…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Problem<\/h2>\n

When running an STSADM command in SharePoint, you get a result of command is invalid<\/span>” following what you believe to be perfectly good syntax. And you know what, it might well be. But what you probably did is cut and pasted the command from a website somewhere. Yep, at 2am when you are busy troubleshooting, you found some comment or instruction in a web based blog or forum that instructed you to perform something. Rather than typing the command in yourself, you instead cut and pasted (why not, I do that all the time too ;).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The problem is, from the HTML page to your DOS prompt to the fussy STSADM command, the ASCII characters probably got skewed (you know what, it might not be ASCII, I don’t really know … or care, all I know is the “-” in the command is different or munged).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Solution<\/h2>\n

It’s really simple. Don’t give up on your syntax and\/or research. Simply augment your approach. You have two choices really:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Option 1:<\/strong><\/span> Don’t cut and paste (meh, I’m still going to do that, so on to Choice #2)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Option 2:<\/strong><\/span> After the cut and paste and running the command fails, simply go through the command syntax in the DOS\/CMD prompt and replace all the extended characters like #$%& and particularly the dash “-” with a retype on your keyboard, replacing the non-valid characters with valid characters<\/p>\n