General FAQs

• Why do I not see detailed error messages when I have an error in my ASP.NET page?

• Why do I receive a configuration error when I attempt to browse my ASP.NET page?

• Which ASP.NET configuration options are supported?

• Are CodeBehind pages supported?

Business Objects-related FAQs

• To which directory are business objects (compliled DLLs) uploaded?

• Are these business objects compiled?

• Is there any change to the global.asax file?
  
  Note: Additional ASP.NET information is located in ASP.NET Extension Information.

General FAQs

Q:  Why do I not see detailed error messages when I have an error in my ASP.NET page?  I only see information about a generic runtime error like the following:

     Server Error in '/appname' Application.
     ----------------------------------------------------
     Runtime Error


Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on the local server machine, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "RemoteOnly". To enable the details to be viewable on remote machines, please set "mode" to "Off".

<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->
 
<configuration>
    <system.web>
        <customErrors mode="RemoteOnly"/>
    </system.web>
</configuration>

Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's <customErrors> configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.

<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->
 
<configuration>
    <system.web>
        <customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="mycustompage.htm"/>
    </system.web>
</configuration>

A:  By default, ASP.NET applications are configured with custom error messages turned off.  However, some web development tools, such as Visual Studio.NET, will create a web.config file with the customErrors mode set to “RemoteOnly”.  In order to enable detailed error messages, you need to make sure that you either remove the customErrors section in your web.config file or that you set the mode attribute in the customErrors section to “Off” in your site’s web.config file.

<customErrors mode="off"/>

Be aware that when you set the customErrors mode to “Off” all visitors of your web site will see the detailed error message.

Note that due to the nature of the shared hosting platform the “RemoteOnly” and “On” modes of the customErrors section are equivalent since every visitor to your web site is browsing remotely.

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Q:  Why do I receive an error like the following when I attempt to browse my ASP.NET page?

     Server Error in '/appname' Application.  
     ---------------------------------------------------  
     Configuration Error


Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition='MachineOnly' beyond machine.config.

A:  You may have defined a section in your application’s web.config file that is not configurable on our shared web hosting platform.  Remove or comment out any configuration sections from your web.config file that are not supported.  See Supported Configuration Options for more information.

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Q.  Which ASP.NET configuration options are supported in the ASP.NET implementation on the shared web hosting platform?

A:  Many of the ASP.NET configuration options are not configurable at the site, application or subdirectory level on the shared hosting platform.  Certain options can affect the security, performance and stability of the server and, therefore cannot be changed.  The following settings are the only ones that can be changed in your site’s web.config file(s):

     browserCaps
     clientTarget
     pages
     customErrors
     globalization
     authorization
     authentication
     webControls
     webServices 

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconaspnetconfiguration.asp for information on ASP.NET.

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Q:  Are CodeBehind pages supported?

A:  Yes, CodeBehind pages are supported in our shared web hosting platform.  For more information on CodeBehind and the ASP.NET Web Form architecture, please see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconwebformscodemodel.asp?frame=true

Business Objects-related FAQs

Q: To which directory are business objects (compliled DLLs) uploaded?

A: Each ASP.NET application(web sites are now referred to as applications - child webs, etc....) is automatically configured to look in the \bin subdirectory, located immediately under your application root, for the required .NET assemblies. By default, the root of your site is an application. Remember,  using certain tools such as Visual Interdev or Visual Studio.NET, you can create more than one application on your site. Each application would need its own \bin directory. If you are using Visual Studio.NET, your application (and its \bin directory) will be created automatically when you create a new web project in a subdirectory of your site.


Q: Are these business objects compiled?

A: The simple answer is on the client side. If you are using VB.NET and VisualInterdev, the objects are compiled and uploaded automatically. These processes are transparent to the user. If a command line compiler is used, then the client must upload the object to the /bin directory of the root application or application subdirectory.


Q: Is there any change to the global.asax file?

A: No, it is the same as the global.asa found today. .NET does, however, introduce a new file called "web.config" to set parameters for your site.