url question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nikhil Patel
  • Start date Start date
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Nikhil Patel

Hi all,
I have installed an ASP.Net application on a production server. When I
type the url for the application, it insterts some strange random string in
the URL.
For example:
If I type http://localhost/opportunitymanager/proposals.aspx in the
address box of the internet explorer, it changes to
http://localhost/opportunitymanager/(k521unec4nw2sd451ex5spje)/proposals.aspx
when the page loads.

Can you please tell me what causes this? I am asking this because the
application works on the web server. But when I try it on the client
machines, it gives the following 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 remotely (for security reasons). It
could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable
on remote machines, 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 "Off".

<!-- Web.Config Configuration File -->

<configuration>
<system.web>
<customErrors mode="Off"/>
</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="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="mycustompage.htm"/>
</system.web>
</configuration>
 
your app is configured with cookieless session.
In your web.config file it is set to true.
 
That is because you are running your application
in a session-less environment.

If you use sessions, those apparently
random strings won't appear.

Check your web.config file for (cookieless="true")

<sessionState
mode="InProc"
cookieless="true"
... rest of config
/>

If you change it to : cookieless="false"
the random strings won't be added to the URL,
and session state management will be available.




Juan T. Llibre
===========
 
Your first question about mangled url is, its the session id that you are
seeing in the url. In your web.config, check the sessionState element, in it
check to see that "cookieless" attribure is set to true. If you do not have
a sessionState element in the web.config, then go open your machine.config
file and check the sessionState element in it.

And your second question., its tough to answer, because its a generic
message asp.net throws when you have the customErrors set to RemoteOnly
either in the web.config or machine.config. So, you need to debug on the
remote server where this error is occuring, or turnoff the remoteOnly
feature to see it from anywhere

Good Luck
 
Hi,

Thank you all for the reply. I know my application does use the Session
object to store a lot of information. Do you think if I keep
cookieless="true", the application would not be able to save information in
the Session object?

Thanks.
 
Hi Nikhil,
There is no danger in using the cookiless=true with respect to session
data. Only disadvantage with using cookieless session is, your url's are
mangled, and you should take care in not using absolute url's in your
application. Also, users would not be able to book mark your pages, because
the session id changes for every user session, so does the url displayed in
the browser
 
No problem, Nikhil.

Those apparently random strings are used to keep
track of session ID's if you decide not to use cookies
to manage your user's sessions.

For a really good explanation of the differences between
using cookies to track sessions and not using them, see
Dino Esposito's excellent MSDN article at :

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/aspnetsessionstate.asp

There's a lot of info there, and every little bit is important.

The specifics about cookieless sessions are linked
in the index, and are almost at the end of the article.




Juan T. Llibre
===========
 
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