Trending Issue: SPSE – “The server tag is not well formed” on certain Search administration pages after March 2025 CU

- - 13 Comments

After installing the March 2025 CU (or any subsequent update) for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, certain search administration pages include incorrect ASP.NET tags leading to the following or similar error message:

An error occurred during the processing of /_admin/search/listmanagedproperties.aspx. The server tag is not well formed.

System.Web.HttpException (0x80004005): The server tag is not well formed.
     at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ProcessError(String message)
     at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseStringInternal(String text, Encoding fileEncoding)
     at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseString(String text, VirtualPath virtualPath, Encoding fileEncoding)
     at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseString(String text, VirtualPath virtualPath, Encoding fileEncoding)
     at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseFile(String physicalPath, VirtualPath virtualPath)
     at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.ParseInternal()
     at System.Web.UI.TemplateParser.Parse()
...

The following search administration related files are affected:

  • /_admin/search/Category.aspx
  • /_admin/search/CrawledProperty.aspx
  • /_admin/search/ListCategories.aspx
  • /_admin/search/ListCrawledProperties.aspx
  • /_admin/search/ListManagedProperties.aspx
  • /_admin/search/ManagedProperty.aspx
  • /_admin/search/ManagedPropertySearchableSettings.aspx
  • /_admin/search/SelectCrawledProperty.aspx
  • /_admin/search/SelectManagedProperty.aspx

Workaround

While waiting for a fix a workaround would be to replace these files with the same files from a server which has February 2025 CU installed.
Ensure to take a backup before performing this step.

Solution

A fix is in development and currently planned to be included in May 2025 CU.

13 Comments


  1. Hi Stefan,

    Thanks for the warning !
    We installed this 2025 March CU in our development farm and we face this issue. Our two other sharepoint farms have the 2024 November CU isntalled.

    Is it safe to copy the mentioned aspx files from one of these farms ?
    If not, can you propose a link to download these files ?

    Thanks in advance !
    Patrick.

    Reply

    1. Hi Patrick, sorry I don’t know. November 2024 CU is quite old and these files might be different from February 2025 CU. I would suggest to install February CU on one of them or another test system before copying the files.

      Reply

      1. Thank you, Stefan,
        We will do that.
        Best regards,
        Patrick.

        Reply

  2. Hi Stefan, are these files in this location? “%commonprogramfiles%\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\Search”?

    Reply

  3. Hello Stephan,

    I had the same issue, but I noticed that the file list isn’t complete.
    I noticed that this CU generates blanks in the ASP.Net tags and in the html tags.
    So I created this script to list all the ASPX pages with this issue, then copy them to a temp folder.

    $pages=Get-ChildItem -Path “C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE” -Recurse | WHERE {$_.extension -eq ‘.aspx’}
    foreach($page in $pages){
    $content=Get-Content $page.FullName;
    if($content -like “*<asp : *”){
    Write-Host $page.FullName
    $path=($page.Directory.FullName).Replace(“C:\”,”E:\Temp\Before\”);
    if(!(Test-Path -PathType container $path)){
    New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $path;
    }
    Copy-Item ($page.FullName) -Destination $path
    }
    }

    Here’s the list of pages I got after running the script :

    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\Search\category.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\Search\crawledproperty.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\Search\listcategories.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\Search\listcrawledproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\Search\listmanagedproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\ADMIN\Search\managedproperty.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\category.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\crawledproperty.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\listcategories.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\listcrawledproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\listmanagedproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\managedproperty.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\category.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\crawledproperty.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\listcategories.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\listcrawledproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\listmanagedproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\managedproperty.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\SearchAdmin\ta_category.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\SearchAdmin\ta_crawledproperty.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\SearchAdmin\ta_listcategories.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\SearchAdmin\ta_listcrawledproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\SearchAdmin\ta_listmanagedproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\16.0.18526.20080\SearchAdmin\ta_managedproperty.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\SearchAdmin\ta_category.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\SearchAdmin\ta_crawledproperty.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\SearchAdmin\ta_listcategories.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\SearchAdmin\ta_listcrawledproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\SearchAdmin\ta_listmanagedproperties.aspx
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\16\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\SearchAdmin\ta_managedproperty.aspx

    I also noticed no update on some of the files you listed, like as ‘ManagedPropertySearchableSettings.aspx, SelectCrawledProperty.aspx, SelectManagedProperty.aspx’

    Please can you check the file list ?

    Reply

    1. Hi Toufik,
      some of the files in your list are from side-by-side installation (those with the version number).
      About the others: the fix will address all of these files.
      Cheers,
      Stefan

      Reply

  4. Hi Stefan, thank you for this notification!
    Is there a reason why there is no mention of this issue in the KB documentation?

    Reply

  5. Do we need to replace the files (February 2025 CU) in all App, Search and Web Front server?

    Reply

    1. On all WFE and rhe central admin server.

      Reply

  6. Hi Stefan,

    We have 2-Application Server, 3-Web Front End Servers and 4- Search Servers, so we need to replace on 2 Application servers and 3 Web Front end Servers?

    Thanks,
    Chandu

    Reply

    1. Hi Chandra,
      that sounds correct.
      Cheers,
      Stefan

      Reply

  7. Hi Stefan,

    we found the same issue on any site collection under site settings \ search \ schema.

    This refers to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\template\layouts” and there is the same error with the listmanagedproperties.aspx file.

    Do you have a list of all files with the path on server which are corrupt? My worry is, that more then the known files are corrupt.

    I can´t understand, that the MS post (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/march-11-2025-update-for-sharepoint-server-subscription-edition-kb5002698-d2f72cdc-deae-4cd1-b5ef-a0381c1c4342) is not updated with this issue.

    Thanks, Henry

    Reply

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