Thanks in advance for reading. I am helping forum user archcommus to try and use an old database from DNN 2 era, and to make it the database for a fresh, new DNN 4.3.7 build. Below was just a prelim test to see if it could be installed in that way.

I feel I am so close to successfully getting this running, but have been foiled at the very end by the following error on Firefox:
"Problem loading page: Unable to connect.
Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at localhost:7756"

Now I've been reading the forums for a while, so I figured I could get around this one. A list below of what I have achieved, and what I have attempted to get around this browser server error...


(1) I successfully installed DNN 4.3.7 with his old database and got to the "Click here to access your portal" goodness. You probably should take a look at the Install report sequence -- The full install report is here



(2) There were some errors on that install. Were they critical? See the hypertext in item (1) above, please.



(3) I figured the 'Firefox can't establish a connection to server at localhost" error was the tried-and-true lack of the key
add key="UsePortNumber" value="True" . So I added that key with appropriate XML tags, but nope, that didn't do the trick.



(4) I then figured that this error was a Portal Alias error. So using the Query function of SQL Server 2005 Express, I tried some variations like this:
update PortalAlias set httpalias = 'localhost/randall' where portalaliasid =1
(where randall is the virtual folder for the assumed-successful DNN 4.3.7 install above. But nope, that didn't do the trick. (I tried a few variations also. Each time the Query Execute was done successfully, so I know I am changing the table value.)



(5) You should know that I used Shawn Mehaffie's excellent blog page here to configure the database attach so that both SQL Server Management Express and DNN could both access the DNN database without fighting each other.



(6) The connectionstring which I used, and which resulted in the successful install here was : connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLExpress;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=False;Database=tfs01;"



(7) I tried a few variations on connection stings with no success.



(8) One thing I feel I could/should be able to do is to use the SQL Server 2000 connectionstring of "Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=tfs01;uid=sa;pwd=xxxxx;" BUT I can't figure out where to give sa a password. I did it before in other DNN installs (give sa a password) but perhaps because I am using the Shawn Mehaffie attach method, maybe I cannot do so?


Any help greatly appreciated. I feel I must surely be one small step from seeing my DNN default.aspx page load up. Thanks!


.

I am not sure if you can use the Initial Catalog with SQL Express.  I'd make sure you can connect using the sa account first with the Database attribute instead of initial catalog and then once you do that then change to using the initial catalog to see if it works.

Shawn and Frank --

Thanks to you both for the replies. What follows below will probably concern database entries, and I am right at the beginning learner stage of database and db interfaces, just so you know. So we'll probably be more successful if you keep it in the "Assume he knows nothing" zone in your replies. Again, thanks for the help thus far; it has been essential!

(a) I haven't changed anything significant from my earlier reports, so the setup is the same. Fortunately I was able to get DNN application to be invoked on the web server with a bit more piddling with the web.config file, and the PortalAlias, as Frank suggested.

(b) Errr, I think I did anyway. Right now, when I deploy the DNN application via the web server, it does a little thinking and returns no errors -- and in fact points to and loads up the correct directory. But then it redirects and the address bar shows this:
http://localhost/Home/tabid/50/ctl/Login/Default.aspx?returnurl=%2fDefault.aspx

(c) The page it shows is blank. I did a little googling on this and discovered another forum user who reported the same type of URL redirect. Fortunately, that person had come back to the forums and posted their own fix, in which he states:
"http://localhost/Home/tabid/0/ctl/Login/portalid/0/Default.aspx?returnurl=%2fDefault.aspx

Btw, the installation tells me that the installation performed without errors. The db table Versions tells me it's 4.3.3.

Ok, fyi, I solved it. When looking at the db tables I noticed there was duplicates. I failed to notice that the previous version was using a objectqualifier. So if anyone has this problem in the future, installation instead of an update this might be the cause.

(d) So this guy seems to suggest that I should use the _Update_ and not the _Install_ download, to get around this issue. (If I do interpret him correctly.) This seems to be in line with what Frank said earlier about scripts missing objectqualifier stuff. I don't know what an objectqualifier is, though.

(e) If I should just try the process again, using _Update_ download instead of the _Install_ download, please tell me that and I'll do it. The only thing we have here which is "old" is the database that we are plugging into, but maybe that is enough to warrant the _Update_ process here.

(f) One last thing, to answer Frank's question: The first error log referenced in the first error line of the Install report (see my first post) reveals that the error was: "Error: The stored procedure 'dbo.GetFolderByFolderPath' doesn't exist." Again this may be related to the difference between an 'Update" versus "Install" download.

THANKS!