Problems getting started

December 27 2011, 15:36

Hi all,

I'm new to CMS 6 (my last version was 4, a number of years ago) and am having issues getting going. Hopefully one of you fine people can help me out.

I have installed the AlloyTech demo site, and when I try to open the project it tells me I am missing a Windows Authentication component from IIS. This is apparently not part of the Windows 7 Home Premium feature list. So I guess I will need to work around this. I would be surprised if EpiServer was unable to run on Windows 7 Home Premium.

So anyway, if I open VS08 in an Administrator context, I can actually open the project. Running it, however, gives me a fun html-error-message-in-a-windows-dialog-box, which isn't much use as I can't even see the error text, hidden as it is beneath all that <html><head><title>Server Error..... etc.

So in the project properties, I change it to use the VS internal dev server. This will allow the project to run, but once within Edit mode, none of the pages within the main frame area load (e.g. /en/Products/ gives 404). Presumably some kind of virtual directory problem, due to Epi relying on IIS? Not sure.

So, moving on. I open the website in Webmatrix and run it. A little closer this time, however as this is the demo site (unlicenced) each frame in the backend has warning messages in it, relating to the missing licence file. Which is better at least, but since my client is still at the evaluation stage, there is no paid licence file to install, so I can't get any further.

Ideally, though, I would be able to build the site as usual in VS. I am sure I have previously had Epi 4.x projects running on this environment. Can it be that I need to upgrade my OS just to run Episerver?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Johan Petersson
December 27 2011, 16:58
Hi,

Have you installed EPiServer on your computer? http://world.episerver.com/Download/Items/EPiServer-CMS/EPiServer-CMS-6-R2/. This is probably the main cause for the 404's.

In EPiServer.config, check the paths in the virtualPath-node. Does all directories exist on your computer?

If you are using the built-in webserver, Cassini, you don't need any license.
ML
December 27 2011, 18:30
Content is edited

Hey, thanks for the fast response.

Yes, I have installed EPiServer, and I even used the deployment centre to create the AlloyTech site in question.

I've checked the config paths, they all seem fine.

Just to clarify further, when using Cassini...: Admin mode seems fine, however after switching into Edit mode, the Left tree, the top buttons and the Preview/Edit/Versions/Workflow tabs all appear correctly - but the main frame 404s. So, for instance, if I use the left tree to select node About Us > Customer Login, the main frame throws a 404 at URL /en/Company/About-Us/Customer-Login/. Also the Dashboard (/episerver) totally 404s. So it seems like a problem with the UrlMapping? I'm not really an expert in IIS/Server software or EPiServer, so I'm a bit stuck.

Tack!

(edited because initially I said "I'm a but stuck" and I am not sure exactly how that might be interpreted.)
ML
December 27 2011, 18:46
Content is edited

Although, interestingly, when I switch the tree language from English to Svenska, the main frame appears to work correctly.

(edit)

Until I actually create content for the Swedish version of the page, at which point that page will not load, just like in the English tree.
ML
December 28 2011, 17:18
Not sure what help this will be, but...

I gave up trying to make the demo site work. Instead, I created a new EPiServer project using VS integration, and pointed the connectionString at a blank EPiServer SQL database. I created a few templates, controls etc and ran the project - it worked fine. So, there seems to be something about the AlloyTech project which disagrees with my environment in some way.

Hopefully this shouldn't matter, as I can just develop my blank site. However, if I come across this error again at some point, it should give me a clue as to where it is caused.

Thanks for your help anyways.
Eric
July 4 2012, 16:28
Content is edited