My environment consists of a custom development MySite capture form. Part of this configuration is a global Sharepoint list that contains all the profile and AD information. When a user updates their MySite we update the list, the profile and AD to ensure everything is up to date instantly. The list contains just under 6000 users.
While testing the roll out of this functionality everything worked fine until normal users (non administrators) started updating their MySite details. All of the updates threw the exception below:
“System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: <nativehr>0×80004005</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>The attempted operation is prohibited because it exceeds the list view threshold enforced by the administrator.”
The exception is fairly self explanatory although why does it only happen with normal users? Simple, Sharepoint gives us the ability to configure a list threshold for normal users and administrators. This allows administrators to open large lists for troubleshooting, maintenance etc. Additionally the exception is raised even though we do not actually view the list but because we access the list via code which by default accesses the default view.
To set the thresholds go to Central Administration\Application Management\Manage Web Applications\[Web Application]\General Settings\Resource Throttling. Note that the setting is web application specific.