Problem:

If you have deleted or your dotnetnuke installation failed to install DDR Menu module, you will get following.

an error has occurred. DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.PageLoadException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at DotNetNuke.UI.Containers.ActionButtonList.get_ModuleActions() at DotNetNuke.UI.Containers.ActionButtonList.OnLoad(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

OR

An error has occurred.DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.PageLoadException: Couldn't load menu style 'admin/Menus/DNNActions': System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at DotNetNuke.Web.DDRMenu.DNNCommon.DNNContext.get_ModuleFolder() at DotNetNuke.Web.DDRMenu.DNNCommon.PathResolver.Resolve(String path, RelativeTo[] roots) at DotNetNuke.Web.DDRMenu.MenuBase.Instantiate(String menuStyle) ---> System.ApplicationException: Couldn't load menu style 'admin/Menus/DNNActions': System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at DotNetNuke.Web.DDRMenu.DNNCommon.DNNContext.get_ModuleFolder() at DotNetNuke.Web.DDRMenu.DNNCommon.PathResolver.Resolve(String path, RelativeTo[] roots) at DotNetNuke.Web.DDRMenu.MenuBase.Instantiate(String menuStyle) at DotNetNuke.Web.DDRMenu.MenuBase.Instantiate(String menuStyle) at DotNetNuke.Web.DDRMenu.DDRMenuControl.OnPreRender(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

Solution

It is a good news if you are installing your new dnn instance, you can download latest installation source from dotnetunke.codeplex.com and that will work just fine.

If you are already having dnn site running and you uninstalled the  DDR menu  by mistake, or you are upgrading the site or DDR menu  and that caused this problem, there are some ways to fix this.

Download and setup local copy of fresh dnn installation and do following:

• Open web.config of fresh install, and search ddr in it. Copy the DDR entry from it and paste it to appropriate section of your site's web.config.
• from fresh install replace /admin/menus and /desktopmodules/ddrmenu folders to your site folder.
• download  http://dnnddrmenu.codeplex.com/releases/70987/download/264940 and paste it into /install/module folder
• Browser for yoursite.com/Install/install.aspx?mode=InstallResources and that's it

In my case, we were trying to upgrade the DDR menu and found the broken site that was restored using above steps.

Best DotNetNuke Hosting Recommendation

ASPHostPortal.com provides its customers with Plesk Panel, one of the most popular and stable control panels for Windows hosting, as free. You could also see the latest .NET framework, a crazy amount of functionality as well as Large disk space, bandwidth, MSSQL databases and more. All those give people the convenience to build up a powerful site in Windows server. ASPHostPortal.com offers DotNetNuke hosting starts from $5. We also guarantees 30 days money back and guarantee 99.9% uptime. If you need a reliable affordable DotNetNuke Hosting, we should be your best choice.

DotNetNuke Performance Tips

Every website run’s into the ghost of a machine. Latency issues? Long responses for client requests? All ghosts, in which can make managing a DotNetNuke instance very painful. But what can we do?
Lets try and solve a couple of these problems!

Database Size:

As you can guess, the size of your database is very important. Lets clean it up a tad.

First take a look at your “EventLog” table. As you can probably guess from the name, it stores events that happen such as when a user log’s in, when someone tries to login, and just general errors that occur. Yes this is important, but honestly… it is only important in the beginning and the end of your applications life. During the middle of the applications life cycle, I suggest turning it off. Make sure you delete the irritating records left in the DB as well.

To Turn off the Event Log, go to your DNN Host Settings page, and ensure the “Site Log History” setting is set to 0(zero).

A couple other tables to clean out would be “SiteLog” and “Scheduler log”.. These records are also just wasting space on the disk.

Database Scripts:

As well, DNN has plenty of washed-up crappy scripts in it’s possession. You can fix a lot of this by using DNNScripts off of codeplex.

The Application:

First thing to keeping a clean application, is when hosted with IIS. Make sure you application stays alive! If no one visits you website once every twenty minutes, IIS by default shuts it down, therefore causing the first user after those 20 minutes endure a painstakingly slow initial page load time. You can prevent this by using Pingdom or PingAlive . However, if you have access to the server, I suggest you change the Idle Time-out settings.

Afraid that the pinging will mess with your site statistics? Try creating a sub site, on the same application and then having the service ping it instead. That way you can go about your business as usual.

Here is another good resource on ensuring your application is alive at all times. I haven’t actually tried it though.. as it is not specific for DNN. : CodeProject – Keep Your Website Alive

Does you site have a lot of static information? Cache it! You can do this via changing the performance settings to heavy caching.

Module Optimization:

Make sure you use SQL Profiler to find long running scripts, usually from 3rd party modules. Then report those issues to their developers. I like to think, no script should surpass 500ms on the norm.

Remove unused modules from your server. If you aren’t using them, then neither should DNN. Get rid of them!

Your Skin:

Install YSlow and make sure you get an A for performance! You can usually find errors in how things are GZIPed and maybe combine your CSS and JS files to get better performance.

Hopefully one or a few of these methods described will help you with your site. If you have any other tips or comments about how to improve DNN’s performance, feel free to let me know with a comment below.

Best DotNetNuke Hosting Recommendation

ASPHostPortal.com provides its customers with Plesk Panel, one of the most popular and stable control panels for Windows hosting, as free. You could also see the latest .NET framework, a crazy amount of functionality as well as Large disk space, bandwidth, MSSQL databases and more. All those give people the convenience to build up a powerful site in Windows server. ASPHostPortal.com offers DotNetNuke hosting starts from $5. We also guarantees 30 days money back and guarantee 99.9% uptime. If you need a reliable affordable DotNetNuke Hosting, we should be your best choice.

Error:

On a new install of DNN 7, when you click on managementand edit buttons, rather than editing you are redirected to the home page (home.aspx).

Happens when using the below actions:

    Edit Page > Edit This Page
    Modules > Add a module
    Uploading images and logos to the Appearance section of Site Settings

Solution:

    After installation is complete, create a duplicate of the web.config and rename web.config.orig
    Open web.config and find the modules node in the <system.webServer> section and add the paramenter below

        <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true" >

Test for functionality

Now when you click on the edit page > edit this page button, you should see the edit tools. This may repair a number of other issues revolving around editing, popups, dragging, uploading images & logos, etc.

Best DotNetNuke Hosting Recommendation

ASPHostPortal.com provides its customers with Plesk Panel, one of the most popular and stable control panels for Windows hosting, as free. You could also see the latest .NET framework, a crazy amount of functionality as well as Large disk space, bandwidth, MSSQL databases and more. All those give people the convenience to build up a powerful site in Windows server. ASPHostPortal.com offers DotNetNuke hosting starts from $0. We also guarantees 30 days money back and guarantee 99.9% uptime. If you need a reliable affordable DotNetNuke Hosting, we should be your best choice.

If you have performed an upgrade to your DNN installation and received the following error after the upgrade had completed with a successful report then this article may help you in correcting this error.

Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: type
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: type

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

You maybe able to correct this error by following these steps.

1) Log into your control panel.

2) Select the option "Domains" from the Main Menu. Select your domain from the list of Hosted Domains on your account.

3) You should now be at the Domain Menu for the selected Hosted Domain. Locate the option for "File Manager" and click on it. This will show you a Browser window with all of your domain's folders. Click on the "wwwroot" folder to view it's contents and then click on the "Bin" folder to view inside of it.

4) Locate the file named "DotNetNuke.Provider.Membership.SqlDataProvider.dll" within the Bin folder and delete it.

5) Try launching your site again at this time and see if this has corrected the issue. If it did not correct the issue, you must call technical support staff from your hosting provider.

Best DotNetNuke Hosting Recommendation

ASPHostPortal.com provides its customers with Plesk Panel, one of the most popular and stable control panels for Windows hosting, as free. You could also see the latest .NET framework, a crazy amount of functionality as well as Large disk space, bandwidth, MSSQL databases and more. All those give people the convenience to build up a powerful site in Windows server. ASPHostPortal.com offers DotNetNuke hosting starts from $0. We also guarantees 30 days money back and guarantee 99.9% uptime. If you need a reliable affordable DotNetNuke Hosting, we should be your best choice.

You recently upgrade your DNN version, after upgrade you cannot login to your website and get "A critical error has occurred. An unexpected error has occurred".

The database upgraded successfully and you don't see any errors in the server logs.

Step by Step to Fix it :

In your web.config try changing

<members defaultProvider="AspNetMembershipProvider">
<providers>
 <clear />

    <add name="AspNetMembershipProvider" type="DotNetNuke.Security.Membership.AspNetMembershipProvider, DotNetNuke.Provider.AspNetProvider" providerPath="~\Providers\MembershipProviders\AspNetMembershipProvider\" />
      </providers>
    </members>

to

<members defaultProvider="AspNetMembershipProvider">
      <providers>
        <clear />
        <add name="AspNetMembershipProvider" type="DotNetNuke.Security.Membership.AspNetMembershipProvider, DotNetNuke" providerPath="~\Providers\MembershipProviders\AspNetMembershipProvider\" />
      </providers>
    </members>

Best DotNetNuke Hosting Recommendation

ASPHostPortal.com provides its customers with Plesk Panel, one of the most popular and stable control panels for Windows hosting, as free. You could also see the latest .NET framework, a crazy amount of functionality as well as Large disk space, bandwidth, MSSQL databases and more. All those give people the convenience to build up a powerful site in Windows server. ASPHostPortal.com offers DotNetNuke hosting starts from $0. We also guarantees 30 days money back and guarantee 99.9% uptime. If you need a reliable affordable DotNetNuke Hosting, we should be your best choice.

When upgrading from DNN 6.x to DNN 7.x, the installation wizard seems to miss an important setting in the web.config.  It also does not delete old DLLs from the /bin/ folder.  Because you are performing an upgrade rather than a clean installation, there are two versions of the AspNetMembershipProvider available, and the web.config may point to the wrong one.

Here is the fix.  Update your web.config to change the AspNetMembershipProvider section so that it uses the DotNetNuke.dll assembly instead of the DotNetNuke.Provider.AspNetProvider.dll assembly.

    <members defaultProvider="AspNetMembershipProvider">
      <providers>
        <clear />
        <add name="AspNetMembershipProvider"
          type="DotNetNuke.Security.Membership.AspNetMembershipProvider,
          DotNetNuke.Provider.AspNetProvider"
          providerPath="~\Providers\MembershipProviders\AspNetMembershipProvider\" />
      </providers>
    </members>

After removing “.Provider.AspNetProvider” from the configuration, everything should work fine.

FREE ASP.NET Hosting for DotNetNuke Recommendation

ASPHostPortal.com provides its customers with Plesk Panel, one of the most popular and stable control panels for Windows hosting, as free. You could also see the latest .NET framework, a crazy amount of functionality as well as Large disk space, bandwidth, MSSQL databases and more. All those give people the convenience to build up a powerful site in Windows server. ASPHostPortal.com offers DotNetNuke hosting starts from $0. We also guarantees 30 days money back and guarantee 99.9% uptime. If you need a reliable affordable DotNetNuke Hosting, we should be your best choice.

I had been functioning with DNN for a long time, Believed this weblog could help other DNN develops. There are two approaches to Contain WSDL files into a DNN module. Service Reference and Web Reference.
Right here I will discussing about Web References.

So to Contain them into DNN initial Correct Click On References within your Project Solution
References -> Add Service Reference -> Advanced(Left bottom Corner) -> Add Web Reference.

Paste your WSDL link towards the URL

Once you hit Add Reference button, Visual Studio will update the Web.config at the Module level.
But need to delete the Module Level Config files.
But Dont forget to take a backup of it, If anything goes wrong

And Set few parameters at Site level web.config file

Remember If you Creating DNN module package and your module uses any kind of SOAP services.
You ought to add parameters to Target Site’s Config file otherwise the site may not work.

Happy Coding

DNN Security Out Of the Box
DNN (DotNetNuke) is currently the premier CMS of the US Government as a result of it's robust security and integration with current safety functions. Nevertheless even DNN is not totally excellent out of the box, and there are numerous additional safety attributes that can be put in location depending on your particular DNN eCommerce requirements. These security suggestions variety from easy to complex and cover many various aspects of possible security risks. No guide can accurately assess your particular safety requirements. In the event you would prefer to adequately secure your DNN web site, contact Clarity these days.

Improve Password Complexity and Use Specifications

Increasing password complexity is among the easiest and most successful methods to significantly boost security. Probably the most common and successful requirements are length and complexity. eight or much more characters along with a minimum of a single capital letter, one lowercase letter and 1 number is a good begin. You are able to contemplate requiring a non-alphanumeric character as well as putting restrictions on how lengthy a password may be used. Even with powerful password needs, you might be only preventing against brute force attacks.

Modify 'Host' and 'Admin' Passwords and Limit Their Use

Altering the Host and Admin password to incredibly complicated passwords is the single most successful step for safety, as each accounts are recognized to exist and are the most vulnerable to brute force attacks as a result of that. Make sure that any password you set for these accounts exceeds the password recommendations listed above. You should also think about limiting access to these accounts, as they may be essentially the most powerful accounts and would leave your site essentially the most vulnerable if they have been compromised.

Hash Password Storage

By default DotNetNuke utilizes encryption of user passwords. This provides a good degree of protection, and enables you to retrieve your password as encryption is a reversible operation. Nonetheless, should you usually do not want to help password retrieval, or want to make certain maximum protection, you may select to utilize Hashing as an alternative. Hashing is really a non-reversible operation, so even if your database is accessed or stolen, a hacker can't reverse engineer your password.

Today, we will explain about Navigating to Another Page from DotNetNuke Custom Module. In a few circumstances, there is a prerequisite to add usefulness that permits clients to explore from one page then onto the next in Dotnetnuke Custom Module. For instance, in the event that you have a custom module called "Register" and the client has successfully registered, you may need to explore the client to an alternate page to view client login detail where an alternate custom module as of now been included request to view login client detail.

In Dotnetnuke module we require the Tab Id of the page so as to explore to an alternate page.So to attain this we can include a dropdown field in Edit page of our custom module(register) to demonstrate all the accessible Tab/ Page names of DNN site where client can choose the Page name to redirect which  inside keeps the Tab Id as quality. Then, we can utilize that Tab Id value as a part of request to explore to other page.

[Code in C#]

EditRegister.ascx

//Adding a Dropdown field in EditRegister.ascx page to allow admin or host to select the redirect page name
<asp:DropDownList ID="ddlTabNames" runat="server"></asp:DropDownList>

EditRegister.ascx.cs

//Adding available page names to the dropdown using object of TabController
if (Page.IsPostBack == false)
{
       DotNetNuke.Entities.Tabs.TabController objTabController = new DotNetNuke.Entities.Tabs.TabController();
 
        ArrayList arrlTabs = null;
        arrlTabs = objTabController.GetTabs(this.PortalId);

        string strKey = string.Empty;
        string strValue = string.Empty;

        ddlTabNames.Items.Clear();
 
       //Get the tabname and tabid of each tabs or page using object of TabInfo and added to dropdownlist field
        foreach (Entities.Tabs.TabInfo objTab in arrlTabs)
        {
            strKey = objTab.TabName;
            strValue = objTab.TabID.ToString();

            ddlTabNames.Items.Add(new ListItem(strKey, strValue));
        }
}

       //Using ModuleControler object we need to save selected Page TabId in module specific variable
        ModuleController objController = new ModuleController();
        objController.UpdateModuleSetting(this.ModuleId, "TabID", ddlTabNames.SelectedValue);

ViewRegister.ascx.cs

       Now From custom module view page we can redirect to another Page or Tab of DNN website using following code

       //Get the selected TabId
       int iProfileTabId = Convert.ToInt32(Settings["TabID"]);

       //Redirect to selected Page
        this.Response.Redirect(Globals.NavigateURL(iProfileTabId), true);

Today, we will discuss about Create a DotNetNuke (DNN) module with an .ascx control. Without the utilization of the visual studio templated of the Dotnetnuke starterkit.

Installed on the PC :

• Visual Studio 2008 Express
• IIS 5.1
• Dotnetnuke
• SQL Server 2008 R2

Dotnetnuke is arranged and acting as the default site as http:\\localhost. I utilize XP Pro IIS administrator to switch between sites.

Create a visual studio project

• Create an C# ASP.NET Web application project
  The location of the project can be inside the DotNetNuke folder in the \DesktopModules folder. I have used “TestProject”.
• The output of the project can be directed into the bin folder of the DotNetNuke folder. You can enter ‘..\..\bin’ as the output path in the build tab of the project properties
• Add a reference to the DotNetNuke.dll (located in the \bin folder)
• Add a new Web User Control (.ascx) file to your project (e.g. WebUserControlTest.ascx)
• In the code behind of the new control, use the DotNetNuke namespaceusing DotNetNuke.Entities.Modules;
• Inherit your control from DotNetNuke’s PortalModuleBase class. In the class created by visual studio you can replace ‘System.Web.UI.UserControl’ by ‘PortalModuleBase’. It will look like this:public partial class WebUserControlTest: PortalModuleBase
• Implement some sample code inside the control.
  For example, add a literal component to the control, and set the Text in the ‘Page_Load’ function of the code behind.
  The .ascx file looks like this:
  <%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="WebUserControlTest.ascx.cs" Inherits="SecondTest.WebUserControlTest" %>
  <asp:Literal ID="PageHeaderText" runat="server" />The .ascx.cs file looks like this:using System;
  using System.Collections.Generic;
  using System.Linq;using System.Web;
  using System.Web.UI;
  using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
  using DotNetNuke.Entities.Modules;
  
  namespace TestProject
  {
  public partial class WebUserControlTest : PortalModuleBase
  {
  protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
  {
  if (this.Page.IsPostBack == false)
  {
  this.PageHeaderText.Text = "Hallo DotNetNuke world!!!";
  }
  }
  }
  }
• Build the user control project. A DLL called ‘TestProject.dll’ will be created in the \bin folder

Notes: The web control can't contain a Form. Since Dotnetnuke as of now has structure on its parent .aspx page. Asp.net can just have one structure for every page. In this way, how about we utilize Panels, Views or Multiviews in your web control.

Create a module definition in DotNetNuke

• Login in with a SuperUser account (host)
• On the host page, go to module definitions
• If you are in Edit mode, you’ll find an option ‘create new module’ at the bottom of the page.
• For ‘Create module from”, select ‘control’ (I guess….)
• Then in the module folder, select the folder you made for your project. I looks like DNN scans for folder in the DesktopModules folder. In this example it is ‘TestProject’.
• When the module folder is chosen, the resource if filled in by DNN: WebUserControlTest.ascx
• Enter a module name: E.g. ‘TestModule’
• Enable the creating of a test page if you want.
• Click on ‘create module’ and DNN updates it’s administraion and create a page with our new module already inside it. You need to see the text “Hallo DotNetNuke world!!!” on the page.

If there should arise an occurrence of issues. Check the security settings inside IIS. Permit script to run in the home direcorty. Furthermore let the new organizer of the venture be adjusted by the Asp.net machine account and the web visitor account (in the event that you need to test if from an alternate machine in your LAN).

Debug your control

• In the Web settings of the project, set http://localhost/ as the Start Url.
• Enable the use of the local IIS server and configure the following:
• project url: http://localhost/DesktopModules/TestProject
• Override appliucation root URL: http://localhost/
• Go to the C# code behind of the control and set a break point at the line where we set the Text of the literal.
• Start debugging (press F5)
• A browser will be started, and the DotNetNuke start page is loaded.
• Navigate to the test page of the ‘TestProject’ module. Maybe you have to login for this.
• At the moment, the test page is loaded, visual studio express will become active and display the location where it has stopped. Now you can step through the code of your control.

You' can get an error message that your framework can't begin debugging on the web server. It likewise says you have to empower incorporated Windows verification for that. I replicated the data how to do that:

To enable integrated Windows authentication

• Click Start and then click Control Panel.
• In Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools.
• Double-click Internet Information Services.
• Click the DotNetNuke Web server node.A Web Sites folder opens underneath the server name.
• You can configure authentication for all Web sites or for individual Web sites. To configure authentication for all Web sites, right-click the Web Sites folder and then click Properties. To configure authentication for an individual Web site, open the Web Sites folder, right-click the individual Web site, and then click Properties.The Properties dialog box is displayed.
• Click the Directory Security tab.
• In the Anonymous access and authentication control section, click Edit.The Authentication Methods dialog box is displayed.
• Under Authenticated access, select Integrated Windows authentication.
• Click OK to close the Authentication Methods dialog box.
• Click OK to close the Properties dialog box.
• Close the Internet Information Services window.