Default Alternate Access Mapping (AAM) No Longer Working

Question

I recently installed a Sharepoint 2010 solution about 3 months ago. The default URL http://companyweb was working nicely without issues.

Recently, however it just stopped working and now only browsing to the server name works.

I did notice that a couple of other issues had cropped up in the Sharepoint error log, like using accounts with high privileges being used for timer service. This is yet to be properly addressed however the service has since been restarted. I don't think this would be related to the AAM.

Are there any settings in IIS 7 that I can check? Where do I start to debug AAM problems?

Answer 1

I think there can be several sources of the problem, if you URL stops working

• something is wrong with your DNS server
• someone changed IIS bindings
• someone changed mappings in Central Administration

About the IIS settings, look into Bindings of your website. Right-click on website and choose Edit bindings.
Also go to Central Administration > Application Management > Configure alternate access mappings to check if something can be wrong there.

Answer 2

In this case it was definitely a DNS related issue. I deleted the CNAME record for companyweb in the DNS and re-added it and everything started working again.