I am at a loss here. DNN is so temperamental, I simply don't understand how it can be used in real production enviroments.

Here is my experience over the last week.
Moved an installation of DNN 4.9 to a new server. A bit of tweaking and restoring the database about 3 times, I finally got it to work.

Then I tried to upgrade to version 5.1. Tried at least 5 times, starting from scratch each time and still get errors(see my other posts).
So now I think maybe I have to try upgrade to 4.9.4 first, then try go to 5.
Back to the first working backup of 4.9 and then upgrade to 4.9.4
Home page loads as normal but no upgrade happens. So I try go to mysite.com/install/install.aspx?mode=install (or upgrade)

Nothing, just a blank page loads. No errors, nothing, just a blank page.
See http://yachtmaster.net/install/install.aspx?mode=install

Back to the 1st working backup for at least the 10th time now.

Now I try a fresh, clean full install of version 5.1, in the hopes that once it is up, I can convert or move my sites to it. 
Appears to work... however now I click on the login page.
No username or password fields appear. The skin is still there but nothing in the center.
Login and Register do not work, so I can't do anything or get any further.

I really have to ask if this is a serious production tool or just an experiment.
You would think my version 5, the simple installation and upgrade bugs would be ironed out.

After a week of screwing around with this, I have had to resign myself to the fact that the sites created in version 4.9.0, will have to stay in version 4.9.0 until I can redesign them in something else.

DNN would be the perfect solution for a lot of my clients... if it actually worked. It's unfortunate.

 I agree.. it is unfortunate... it was a good idea, kind of.  But it's horrible and, as you say, temperamental.  Wasted so many hours trying to either get it to just run or trying to work around one of its many shortcomings just to make something simple work.

I'm scared to death of having to move the environment precisely b/c of what you said.

Guess I'll be wasting another week when we move servers next month.  Thanks for the heads up! ;)

Chris,

  Please contact me directly at joe AT dnncorp.com.  I have performed hundreds of DNN installs and upgrades and have not experienced the difficulty you describe and would like to understand your particular configuration so that we can isolate the cause of your problems and incorporate the necessary changes into DotNetNuke to improve the robustness of the platform.