Hi,

You could try uploading your local site to a new remote site (ie, create a new subdomain and a new database and change the publish settings to publish to the new website).

That way you can test if re-publishing your local site works and if it does copy across from the old site to try to identify what's caused the problem.

Spike

Spike,

I'm using FireZilla FTP, rather than Publishing from within Web Matrix, so I can selectively upload files. I also used FTP initially, as the documentation recommends uploading a new site in several stages (i.e. groups of files), to avoid upload problems.

Your suggestion to "copy across from the old site to try to identify what's caused the problem" is noted. Presumably you mean that by a process of elimination, the 'culprit' file might be found. Before doing that, I'll check Joe's suggestions. Also, someone else may recall a similar incident on their site.

Joe,

You wrote "I would caution you about uploading the entire site ..." The remote site is temporary hosting only, where the eventual site owner can see the design and functionality available. It's stored in a sub-folder off my own web site. 

The local site is the design site, but only while I'm still adding features. As the design progresses, I FTP the database, overwriting the current database, and also upload any images I may have added (the owner is aware any content he adds would be lost).

I know this would not be good practice for the production site (when the owner will start to add content), so at that stage the local site will be abandoned and changes will only be made on an owner-selected host.

You suggested I "might also look in your log to see if it is logging anything that says it couldn't load your master page". Just now, I signed in, then examined the currentlog.config file, and there are no new entries relating to this event.

It does appear to be a styling issue. I don't know which CSS file styles the Admin toolbar, but I will try to locate it and compare that file on the remote and local sites. I haven't (as far as I can recall) modified the toolbar style (never occurred to me to do so, and it's fine as it is). Yet on one day last week the toolbar style displayed changed unexpectedly, and I don't yet know how that happened.

James

Finally made some progress with my investigation!

Signed in, and then browsed to same page on local PC site and remote hosted site.

Used View Source to capture each page’s source HTML, and then used WinMerge to compare.

Only differences I could see were:

• One extra line on the remote hosted site, which was an extra hidden viewstate input control. Possibly not relevant, though the page design is same on local and remote sites.
   
• Many ‘Href’ differences due to remote site located in a sub-folder (Virtual Directory) below that host’s root.

Then I noticed the Href differences were not consistent in the case of all stylesheet paths on the remote site. Following are examples (of about 22 stylesheet files in total)

<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/Data/style/jqtoolbar/style.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/Data/style/forums/style.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/Data/style/CalExtender/Calendar.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/Data/style/adminmenu/style.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/Data/style/common/style.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/gowran-demo-1/Data/Sites/1/skins/styleshout-envision/style.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/gowran-demo-1/Data/Sites/1/skins/styleshout-envision/stylemenu.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/gowran-demo-1/Data/Sites/1/skins/styleshout-envision/styletreeview.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/gowran-demo-1/Data/Sites/1/skins/styleshout-envision/styleblog.css' />
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/gowran-demo-1/Data/Sites/1/skins/styleshout-envision/styleforum.css' />

where /gowran-demo-1/ is the sub-folder where the remote site is located (it was setup as a Virtual Directory).

In particular, editing the browser URL, I was unable to download the toolbar (jqtoolbar) CSS file from /Data/style/jqtoolbar/style.css, but could download it from /gowran-demo-1/Data/style/jqtoolbar/style.css. This would explain the new style toolbar not being displayed correctly.

I noticed the Forum stylesheet had a similar path difference, so I added a Forum to the remote site, and found that some icons (e.g. Folder, New Topic, Pencil) were not displayed, again (presumably) due to an incorrect CSS file path.

OK, I know I may have made life difficult for myself by using a Virtual Directory rather than a sub-domain.
Yet, for the first few days of it’s life, the remote site correctly displayed the new style Admin toolbar, until one day it stopped doing so (unfortunately, I don’t have the stylesheet paths from earlier to prove that).

I will change to a sub-domain instead, which is a more realistic home for the demo, until the site’s eventual host is available.

Whether there’s an issue for mojoPortal here (i.e. 12 of the 22 stylesheets paths different, but not all), I don’t know.

Joe,

From my initial post:

I'm using mojoportal-2-3-6-7-sqlce-net40-deploymentfiles

Have a site running on local Windows 7 computer, with Web Matrix 7.1

Have a remote copy of the site on shared hosting with ASP.Net 4.0.

Currently, this is a new site with very few changes to the default unzipped files, except for Skin selection and some pages with content. Currently only a demo, hopefully to let the eventual owner see how he can create and edit content.

Still learning and probably breaking other 'rules' also, but when I study the documentation more and discover 'best practices', I'll apply them to the production site.

I guess there are some steps I need to take to 'clean up' the design, in addition to the suggestion you just made. Thanks for that - I will add it to my To Do list.

Actually, I will do that shortly and let you know if it resolves the issue (though I may still move the site to a sub-domain for the demo).

I didn't want to suggest a Bug, but I was surprised by the inconsistency in CSS paths, and that this changed unexpectedly. If useful, you are welcome to a copy of any file you wish to inspect (including the db).

James

Joe,

I made the changes you suggested on the remote site

<add key="CombineCSS" value="true"/>
<add key="MinifyCSS" value="true"/>
<add key="CacheCssOnServer" value="true"/>
<add key="CacheCssInBrowser" value="true"/>

and now there is just the one stylesheet link (apart from the external link for jquery-ui.css), and presumably this links to the combined css file:

<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='/gowran-demo-1/csshandler.ashx?skin=styleshout-envision&amp;s=1&amp;v=2.3.6.7' />

The good news is that now the New style Admin toolbar is rendered correctly (and those missing Forum icons are also rendered), so that Web.config change appears to have got around the problem.

I re-checked by setting those keys to 'false' again, and then the rendering became incorrect again.

I presume those keys being set to 'false' for the default (out of the box) Web.config file is for the benefit of developers during site development, but as you say, should be set to 'true' before uploading to the production site.

James

I confess I must have changed those settings to False, triggering that url issue, but it's good to know it's fixed in the next release.

Thanks Joe, I learned some new stuff during the investigation.

Thanks also to Spike.