I've been running DNN for many years, but only remotely on hosted accounts elsewhere. Since v8.0.0, all the upgrades have failed with Error 500, so I had given up, until last night when I tried again with the v9.1.0.367 upgrade. Same problem - after overwriting all the files and restarting it gives Error 500 instead of proceeding to the upgrade.
So I decided the only way to debug this was to install the full version locally, get it working, then "downgrade" by overwriting with my remote backup zip file, perform the upgrade and debug the webserver. Seemed like a good idea until I tried the current installation download.
1. I already have full SQL Server installed, but the installation doesn't detect it, and insists I connect to ".\SQLExpress".
2. I then tried again, and allowed it to install SQLExpress 2008 R2 (Really?? Why not SQL2014 at least?). I supplied the chosen sa password, it installed SQLExpress, but told me the password was incorrect when it tried to go ahead with the DNN part. But I can connect to the SQLExpress installation via management studio, using the password I supplied to the DNN installation, and it works fine!
3. Any suggestions? It surely can't be this difficult or no-one would be using DNN - is there anyone out there?
Ade