I've got a DNN 6 installation running on a VM as a test bed for the developer in the office, and we're wanting to take that site and move it to our live web server for deployment.  Both the VM and the live server are Server 2003 32-bit with SQL 2008 R2 Express installed.

 When I copy the dotnetnuke folder to the new server and try to access the site, I get an event log entry in the application log from MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS saying :

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS
Event Category:    Logon
Event ID:    15372
Date:        9/21/2012
Time:        1:42:29 PM
User:        NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
Computer:    TMSWEB
Description:
Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to a failure in starting the process for the user instance. The connection will be closed. [CLIENT: <local machine>]

I've tried running SQL as LocalSystem, NetworkService, and as an Administrator.  I've set permissions on the dotnetnuke folder giving "Everyone" full access, as well as network service, local system, and the IIS account.  I've made sure that the application pool that the site is using is running as NetworkService.  I've even tried mounting the database on our SQL Standard server and changing the connection string to point to it instead of the SQL Express database, and I still get this error, along with the "Under Construction" page.

I've searched for that error message extensively, but I haven't been able to find anything that fixes the issue.  Any ideas?

please review the windows user account specified in your application pool. if you are using "network service" and integrated security in your database connection strings within your web.config file, you should be able to access the server. make sure, the file is not attached to sql server, if using user instance mode (database specified in web.config by its file name)

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Cheers from Germany,
Sebastian Leupold

   

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The user account listed in the Identity tab for the application pool is Network Service, and the web.config file has the default connection string for SQL Express:

<add key="SiteSqlServer" value="Data Source=.\SQLExpress;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|Database.mdf;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=True" />

 The file isn't attached using SQL Server Management Studio.

 Now, I CAN open the database using SSMS, but apparently the DNN installation can't, even after a reboot to make sure that nothing still has the files marked as open.