Hi Everybody,

I ran into a problem after I upgraded to 5.0.  I upgraded from 4.9.1 to 5.0 and now each and every time I login I get the error information below, but it only occurs on the first login for each user and seems to occur on first login again after 24 hours.  It makes me think it may be an issue of the way DotNetNuke handles login persistence, but I don't know that for sure.  I also assume it is either due to a file not moving to the server during FTP or some other failure in that manner.  I have tried search but I don't seem to be able to find anybody else with this problem.  Normally I can figure most errors out but this one is so vague that I don't even know where to start.  The error occurs on all portals with all the usernames I have tested with.  It doesn't seem to stop the application from working in any manner, it is just a minor annoyance that I would like to fix.  Has anybody encountered this and does anybody have any suggestions?  Thanks everybody. 

Error on the Page: 
A critical error has occurred.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Error in the Event Viewer: 
Title:  2/20/2009 11:20:05 AM   Page Load Exception       AssemblyVersion: 05.00.00; PortalID: 0; PortalNa ...
Error Detail:
AssemblyVersion: 05.00.00
PortalID: 0
PortalName: MyPortal
UserID: -1
UserName:
ActiveTabID: 36
ActiveTabName: Home
RawURL: /Default.aspx?tabid=36&ctl=Login&returnurl=%2fDefault.aspx%3ftabid%3d36
AbsoluteURL: /Default.aspx
AbsoluteURLReferrer: http://www.mysite.com/Default.aspx?tabid=36&ctl=Login&returnurl=%2fDefault.aspx%3ftabid%3d36
UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
DefaultDataProvider: DotNetNuke.Data.SqlDataProvider, DotNetNuke.SqlDataProvider
ExceptionGUID: c6934194-9e8e-4212-9016-389a628ce887
InnerException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
FileName:
FileLineNumber: 0
FileColumnNumber: 0
Method: DotNetNuke.Common.Utilities.XmlUtils.GetAttributeValueAsInteger
StackTrace:
Message: DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.PageLoadException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at DotNetNuke.Common.Utilities.XmlUtils.GetAttributeValueAsInteger(XPathNavigator nav, String AttributeName, Int32 DefaultValue) at DotNetNuke.Common.Utilities.Config.GetPersistentCookieTimeout() at DotNetNuke.Entities.Users.UserController.UserLogin(Int32 portalId, UserInfo user, String PortalName, String IP, Boolean CreatePersistentCookie) at DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Authentication.Login.ValidateUser(UserInfo objUser, Boolean ignoreExpiring) at DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Authentication.Login.UserAuthenticated(Object sender, UserAuthenticatedEventArgs e) at DotNetNuke.Services.Authentication.AuthenticationLoginBase.OnUserAuthenticated(UserAuthenticatedEventArgs ea) at DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Authentication.Login.cmdLogin_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.System.Web.UI.IPostBackEventHandler.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(NameValueCollection postData) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
Source:

Can anybody at least point us in the right direction.  Now that there are two of us, I would bet there are many more.  Core team, community, anybody.  The error message is so vague and useless, I don't even know where to start looking to fix the problem. 

Although I have not seen that particular error, I would suggest you look closely at the "system.web/authentication/forms" node in your web.config file to see if there is a problem with how the timeout or optional PersistentCookieTimeout attributes are specified. My DNN 5 test site's web.config file looks like the following for this node. Note that I am not using the optional PersistCookieTimeout attribute:

<authentication mode="forms">
  <forms name=".DOTNETNUKE" protection="All" timeout="60" cookieless="UseCookies"/>
</authentication>

If that doesn't point you in the right direction, please indicate FROM which DNN version you were upgrading, whether you used the install or upgrade version of DNN 5.00.xx, and how you handled making changes to your earlier version web.config (automatically if earlier version was 4.06.02 or later or manually copy essential information from olw web.config to a DNN 5 web.config file).

---

Bill, WESNet Designs
Team Lead - DotNetNuke Gallery Module Project (Not Actively Being Developed)
Extensions Forge Projects . . .
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