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Joined: 12/15/2008
Posts: 838
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Peter Donker wrote:
Awkward. There's a lot of gripes about DNN, but not about the installation experience. I've installed 7.2.1 ten times without as much as a single hitch, but naturally the install zip. Where did you read/hear you should use the source version as a starting point for installing DNN? Just for your info: the source package contains the regular website dir without the dlls that make up the application. Then, it has a bunch of directories with the projects that make those dlls. It means you have to compile before can run (and those are set to compile right to the bin folder of the site). That is the only way and a huge overkill if you don't need to debug DNN. Why did you want to install a source version? Note that for many projects I've stumbled on, on the web, the source version also requires compilation first. For me it's usually a sign to steer clear and head for the binary version that just runs.
My 2cts,
Peter
If you go to the Installation subforum, you'll find a lot of installation issues from users. I installed the source version because I am learning module development and want to learn how DNN works. It would make debugging easier and it's a way to learn if an issue is from DNN itself and not from my module.
I have installed the source version before during the v5 and v6 days. I don't expect v7 to be any different. The dll's do exist, otherwise the solution wouldn't compile. Telerik, Lucene, Newtonsoft.. etc are all there. If the source zip doesn't install or compile, what's the point of providing it to the public? I don't mind compiling DNN.
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Joined: 12/15/2008
Posts: 838
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Chris Onyak wrote:
That isn't an issue with DNN but with Windows. Did you upgrade on Windows 8 or Windows 2012? Newer versions of Windows is known to have issues extracting the files due to security. Before you extract the install you need to make sure the zip is unlocked.
Another cause for that is if the install ran into a problem or if you didn't follow the correct upgrade path. For example, you can't upgrade from DNN 4.9.5 to 7.2.2 directly. It should be that simple, but it isn't. DNN Corp. may want to have some validation in the install that verifies the current version and what they are upgrading to to prevent those confusions. For now, you need to follow a specific upgrade path. Ex: 5.6.8 to 6.0 to 6.2 to 6.2.8 to 7.2.2. That seems to work the best for me.
There are other situations that may cause problems. If you have a user base with 200,000+ users you will need to disable the auto assignment before you upgrade. I think the issue is in 6.1.0 where it changes the description of the Subscriber and Registered User Roles, that triggers ASP.Net Membership to update all of your users and if you have a lot of users then it's very possible that your install could time-out and won't complete....causing a lot of issues.
If your portals have a lot of files in the root directories then you'll also run into problems during 7.1.0 when the Content Manager attempts to index the files. However, that is a much bigger problem, if you manage to get past the install you will have serious performance problems on specific pages of your site that could crash the entire system. In this case, you will need to either modify the core to limit the index to 200 files or move the files to a SANS or a cloud provider.
The issues I run into are not the norm and only a problem for enterprise level companies with massive amounts of data and content. In your case, I bet the zip file just wasn't extracted correctly due to Windows security. Or... you didn't follow the upgrade path.
It's a fresh install. Not an upgrade. It's under Windows 7. Even under Windows 8, the zip unzips fine without errors. it's what's inside the zip is where the problem lies. I tried both under Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
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Tony Henrich wrote:
Yesterday, I wanted to see what the latest version looks like and tried to install DNN 7.2.1 from the full source zip. The installer errored with a divide by zero error. I tried two different machines. I tried several times with same problem. I searched the forums and the solution was to copy the the 'install' folder from the install zip over the one created from the source zip. I mean what the WTF!!!. I wasted a lot of time because the person who packaged the zip didn't bother to do BASIC QA by trying to install a fresh install. Shoddy lousy sloppy work. The link 'View Installation Video' on the first installation page goes to a corp website that has no videos.
After the install has finished, the home page goes to page with no formatting as if no css is being applied. Another problem I have to troubleshoot.
ok, next subject (which, IMHO, would be worth a dedicated thread).
We (speaking for frequent supporters, hopefully the others don't mind) are well aware of challenges during installation. But the main challenge: DNN is a server product, not a consumer app. You need to setup Windows, IIS and SQL Server appropriately to get the proper base for DNN (I wouldn't dare to get a WordPress package and install it on Apache w/o further instructions). I.e., I am happy about MS Web Platform installer handling these challenges, but there are still caveats, we got to know - maybe due to too many different configurations of the environment. I am still longing for a slipstream installer and update option - but understand, that there are too many requests, DNN Corp. is handling. But it is one of the challenges for DNN to attract new users. There are a number of other details discuss, but I'd love to focus on fundamental ones in this thread.
PS: Tony, I am with you regarding install of source package, which used to contain a ready to run environment until DNN 5, and still claims to be "source and install" (which is just wrong, IMHO).
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Joined: 12/15/2008
Posts: 838
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Sebastian Leupold wrote:
Tony Henrich wrote:
The forums is where I get support.
I agree, that it would be easier to handle all the community support via a single entrance point (and I still prefer forums, which provide better notification and overview), while DNN Corp. decided to use one of their great products.
As complaints don't help, we are trying our best to support both, but I'd kindly ask all community members to submit questions just once - thank you!
The tag feature is a mess and I see this in many Q&A sites where they allow a user to use any tag. You end up with thousands of misspelled tags, several tags which are basically same topic. It seems the Community Exchange area doesn't implement auto complete in the tag filter. So how does one know what tag to use to filter by? StackExchange gets it right. They have autocomplete and only people with enough reps can create new tags. That's why I prefer the forums. Subforums deal with certain topics only. It's not a one big pool of Q&A area where you have to wade through question. Plus I don't know if I can search by title only in the Q&A module. Again StackExchange does it right. You can search by title only there. This way I can limit a lot the search results.
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Tony Henrich wrote:
If you go to the Installation subforum, you'll find a lot of installation issues from users. I installed the source version because I am learning module development and want to learn how DNN works. It would make debugging easier and it's a way to learn if an issue is from DNN itself and not from my module.
I have installed the source version before during the v5 and v6 days. I don't expect v7 to be any different. The dll's do exist, otherwise the solution wouldn't compile. Telerik, Lucene, Newtonsoft.. etc are all there. If the source zip doesn't install or compile, what's the point of providing it to the public? I don't mind compiling DNN.
Tony, as far as I read the thread, Peter stated clearly, that he didn't had a chance to monitor the forums.
Compilation generates DNN dll's, i.e. Source package does contain .dll files only for 3rd party components now, required to create a working environment. But don't let's talk about edge cases - I'd like to focus, how we could improve the install experience (and usage) for newbies? IMHO, attracting new users is the key challenge for our community atm.
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