Hi folks,

I run a fairly popular Web site based on DNN 4.06.02. This site has only one portal, and it is the default portal.

Last night I noticed to my dismay that something very strange had happened to the site. At least the page-related configuration settings related to the portal have simply disappeared. Specifically it seems as if DNN has simply forgotten that the portal contained dozens of pages -- with the exception of a few built-in pages such as Login and Terms of Service, attempts to resolve the urls of various pages on the site simply display the content of the homepage.

Logging in as a site admin seems to confuse the software quite a bit - the navigation bar is empty, not even displaying the drop-down Admin menu. Logging in as host gives me a Host drop-down menu but nothing else (there ought to be an Admin menu too, and lots of other entries on the bar which I put there). I tried to edit the settings for the default and only Portal on the site using the Host > Portals page, but when doing so, I got a 404 error. The Host > Portals page also displays an exception message under the actual module that lists the portals on the site:

 Unhandled error loading module.
DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.ModuleLoadException: Unhandled Error Adding Module to ContentPane ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Portals.Portals.Page_Init(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.OnInit(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.UserControl.OnInit(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Control.AddedControl(Control control, Int32 index) at System.Web.UI.ControlCollection.Add(Control child) at DotNetNuke.UI.Skins.Skin.InjectModule(Control objPane, ModuleInfo objModule, PortalSettings PortalSettings) --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

From running spot checks on my SQL server, all the data for the portal seems to be intact -- specifically tables such as HtmlContent and Tabs and the Modules tables are intact; and the portal has an entry in the Portals table.

I don't believe any changes have been made to site configuration recently, though I've sent mail to my assistant site admin and my hosting provider to double-check.

Anyone have any thoughts as to what might be going on? I have considered just restarting the app to see if that fixes it, but I have not restarted the app before -- is there any possibility this could cause data or state loss or some other kind of problem?

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Aaron

Hi,

Yes, I've changed the skin to something custom-made. It does contain a ContentPane. The skin has not been changed in a month or two, though.

I've verified that the site has not been modified by my assistant site admin. I guess that the best way to describe this error is that while definitions exist in the default portal for many different pages and modules (the SQL data for all these pages and modules is intact), yesterday the application simply stopped recognizing them, and trying to load any user-defined page on the site instead displays the homepage content. Is that more clear?

Thanks,
Aaron

achooyeah is right.  Look in the Tabs table of the database, or the PortalSettings.  When you notice references to skin paths, verify the path to make sure it exists.  All path references will be preceded with a letter.  This just tells the Core code whether the skin is in the Host or Portal directory.