My Links are Broken!

Ever have a user come to you and say "My Links are broken!"? If you haven't, just wait, you will...

My Links is a different animal from other Links in MOSS, the actual list behaves differently and if you ever tried to find it in the SQL server you know it is stored differently as well.

To answer your first question... Where is My Links stored? It can be found in your Default SSP inside the UserLinks table, that's right I said the Default SSP.

Now the way the table is built is quite simple, you have your Id, which is the Row identifier and primary key.
The RecordId, which is actually used to identify who owns the link stored in the row. It is not the User's actual Id, but is an Id that is arbitrarily assigned to each user (Makes it tough to find things...).
The Title, which is the first peice of usable information you can use to identify what needs to be changed, this information is the Title the User entered for the name of the Link.
The GroupType identified whether the link is part of a subgroup or not (2 - No Group, 0 - is a Group Member).
The GroupTitle is the name of the Group, it is only populated when the group type is value 0.
The URL is the place we need to go to fix the link. It contains the link info.
The ContentClass and PolicyId must serve a purpose, but I am unconcerned with them right now...
Lastly is the ItemSecurity, which identifies how the user intended to share the link.

To correct a broken link you will need to find the culprit, the user usually knows what link they entered that broke it, but in some cases they may be blissfully ignorant of what they did. A few hints into what breaks my links. The link needs to be invalid, but not a broken link... That means it is valid in most situations, just not in My Links. As an example using file: requires three slashes /// not two, as some people may enter, in most situations two slashes work, but not here... So you should look for any links that are file:// and replace them with file:///.

How do you do that? First you need to run SQL Server Management Studio (for 2005 or 2008) as a user with update permissions to the database, find the link that is causing the problem using either a Script table as -> SELECT TO -> New query editor window or using Open Table. Once you have identified the problem, either delete the row or fix the problem and commit the change.

Hope that helps...

Dave