Unknown error when web site is published

[Timbo]

This is a really weird one and very odd.

I have written a web site using VS2005 and .Net 2.0, all works very well
when running it locally. However when I publish it to my web server (hosted
by HELM), I get unknown errors when I connect to some of the aspx pages,
however if I keep surfing around my web site the pages suddenly start
working for no apparent reason. Once each page has been displayed at least
once that particular page won't thow an error again, however on another
machine I can have the same problem (although it appears not to be quite so
bad).

Anyone have any ideas what might be causing this behaviour. Web server not
loading the pages properly until their cached properly? Is there any code I
can use to slow down the loading of the pages - I'm grabbing at straws
here!!

I have put an friendly error page so at least the user doesn't see the ugly
..NET error


Any help / pointers will be greatly appreciated.

TIA

Tim

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

Are you using the web site project that comes with the pre-SP1 version fo VS
2005? I'm asking because you mention jumping around seems to work after a
page is called once. In the web site project, pages are compiled more on the
fly than in VS 2003 web projects. That means they don't get pre-compiled.
One of the biggest issues that comes about is when you're sharing classes
from other directories. Those files don't usually get compiled in the order
we would expect. A new project was introduced soon after the launch of VS
2005 called the Web Application Project. This mimics the web project from
previous versions of VS and enables you to pre-compile the entire site. I
don't know which project type you're using, but it seems to fit this
scenario.

 

[Timbo]

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your reply, When looking as the version of VS2005 is says
8.0.50727.762 (SP.050727-7600).

I took a look on the Microsoft download site and VS2005 SP1 also says
version 50727.762 so I guess I already have it.

Am I correct? If so any other ideas?

Kind Regards

Tim

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

Tim,
The next thing to check is the project type. Usually if you
right-click the project and choose properties, you'll receive a dialog on
the screen with a good number of vertically laid out tabs (mine has 9,
beginning with Application and ending with Code analysis). The Web Site
project is usually a shorter list and not setup as tabs if I remember
correcltly. The big difference is the creation process. Even with SP1 you
can still create the old web site project. To create the Web Site project
you would use File | New | Web Site. If you used this method to create the
project then that would mean it's this problematic web site project template
that shipped with the initial launch of VS 2005. If you used the File | New
| Project, and selected the ASP.Net Web Application project type then you're
using the new version that compiles into one dll. One way to check is to see
if you have a ton of strangely named dll files, usually made up of the page
name plus a bunch of numeric text. If so then you're using the web site
project and not the asp.net web application. I believe there is a conversion
process to make it easier, but I don't remember since as soon as the add-on
was available pre-sp1 I started from scratch with the new application
project type.