Can anyone explain exactly step by step, installing DNN to Godaddy's shared windows accounts.

I did all of the instructions but nothing,

 

What can I do ?

 

Thanks

todd.ingle,

Congrats on manually installing DNN 4.3.5 or later, at your shared-hosting site with GoDaddy. (I am assuming this is what you did, as opposed to having GoDaddy install it for you through the Value Applications menu.)

You definitely would not be receiving an email notification of any sort until you set up your SMTP under host. But of course, if you cannot log in at all, then you can't set up SMTP ... vicious circle ...

But you are in the same boat as myself and a few others during this week. I have posted several informative messages during this week regarding this issue, so I encourage you to click on my name and read those posts. You will also find quickly some threads with other people wanting to do the same.

I have an extra, currently empty, shared-hosting account with GoDaddy that we can all practice on (although in your case, it doesn't seem so necessary). But anyway, we can all work together on it. I can be contacted at commonmancomputing. c o m

Thanks!
Travis

I have a DNN 4.3.5 site running at GoDaddy and can list the instructions from memory. I tried this weekend to do a 4.3.6 installation and it failed. The following are my instructions.

1. You can't install dnn in your root directory, because DNN needs read write and execute permissions for the application and GoDaddy won't let you set them that way on a root directory. I have seen other postings that claim by setting the permissions for Portals, DesktopModules and a couple of other directories you can do this. However, during the installation DNN rewrites web.config file and DNN expects it in the top directory.
2. With the GoDaddy control panel create a new MS SQL server database with the DSN and ASP.Net scheme options. (I am not sure that the options are required, but I always set them)  After the Database is created retrieve the connection string information as you'll need it later. Note: The database name DB_nnnnn part of the connection string isn't known until the database is created.
3. With the GoDaddy control panel "Directory Management" set the ASP environment to 2.0 assuming that you are installing DNN 4.3.x and not 3.3.x
4. With the GoDaddy control panel "Directory management" create a directly called "dnn" with the following permissions Read, Web, Write, & Set Root". It takes GD a long time for this action to actually happen.
5. On your local system UnZip the DNN Install Kit into a empty directory.
6. Rename web.config to orig-web.config
7. Make a copy of release.config and rename it web.config
8. Edit this web.config. Comment out the default connection strings (2) that are for a local copy of SQL Server Express. Uncomment the regular SQL connection strings (2) and enter the GD connection data that you retrieved and saved after step 2 above.
9. Using an FTP tool such as Filezilla copy the contents of the folder that you unzipped DNN into to the "dnn" folder at GoDaddy.
10. Using you web browser click on yourdomain/dnn and you should see the grey and white installation take place before your eyes.
11. There are three common error / troubleshooting paths if the installation doesn't go well. (I have seen them all)
1. An error screen that says that DNN can't connect to the database. Re-check the connection string data and the commenting XML syntax.
2. What I call the yellow screen of death, where DNN suggests that you had an error that is not made visible for remote users, and that you should use a "custom error page". It would be nice if DNN would include one in the basic installation!  Actually it would be nice if DNN provided a small standalone ASP app that  would check all of the configuration requirements to use prior to installation or while troubleshooting. It might eliminate a lot of these questions about setup for hosted installations.
3. An error that DNN requires the IIS server ASPNET or NETWORK SERVICES users to have "total control" permissions to the DNN root directory.
12. Once you are running change the passwords for admin and host, and add content.
13. Save a copy of the web.config locally AFTER you have a running DNN site. It has been modified during the installation with a new key to encrypt passwords. If this file gets corrupted you can't use the copy that you currently have on you local system since the encryption key has been changed during the installation.

With the Install Kit for DNN 4.3.6 I encountered a fourth condition this weekend. The browser (IE7) would just sit there with the circle spinning for HOURS and not error with a 404 page not found or any other error.  I finally went back to 4.3.5 using the same directory and SQL database just to prove that that setup was correct. 

 

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/Dave S