lousaint wrote
We're experiencing and posting several problems with 4.5.3 to which we're receiving no replies:
1) the most unnerving: suddenly without warning and for no apparent reason neither LOGIN nor REGISTER work anymore; instead, the page simply refreshes. Our hosting service has installed DNN four times, now. Our work is trashed and we have to start over each time. We see that several other people are having the same problem but there're no replies suggesting possible causes or solutions.
Based on your other comments posted in this thread, including the comment from the vendor that told you there is a big with the login module. I would gather that a "login" page and "Registration" page was set in the "Site Settings" that did not have the appropriate module on the page. This is a VERY common issue for someone to update the login page to a page without a login module, this might appear to be a critical error, however you can VERY easily with 1 SQL Script fix the issue and get back into your DNN site without re-installing DotNetNuke.
I have the detailed instructions on how to get back in on my website http://www.mitchelsellers.com if you happen to need them
2) it takes several minutes for our website to come up for the first time each day; sometimes, it timesout and fails to come up at all. Our host says "when DNN first loads, all 2800 files must go into memory. Thereafter, it's fine." Is this true? Note: after the first load, subsequent loads come up quickly.
As mentioned above you will want to get a keep-alive service to prevent your site from unloading. This is an ASP.NET issue and is common to ALL ASP.NET applications after 20 minutes of inactivity. Also as you noted in a later post it isn't 2800 files, but the files needed for DNN to run, and the complied assembly.
3) because of "1" we've had to go into our DNN database and do things manually. For example, we deleted some of our own links and images. But when we go back to our site, they are still there. Is there some way we can "refresh" so that the deleted items will no longer appear?
Depending on what you changed yes there is caching implemented in the DNN front end and it can take 10-30 minutes for it to clear, depending on what exactly it is that you changed. I personally HIGHLY recommend only changing the database as a last resort as there are many risks associated with direct database modification. If you do update via the database you can restart the application to clear the cache, you can do this by pressing the "Restart Application" link in Host Settings or by adding a space to your web.config file and re-saving it.
4) the Guided Tour's dropdown list of available modules includes "Gallery." Our site's list does not. Is there, in fact, a Gallery module?
Starting with DotNetNuke 4.4.1 DNN started only installing needed modules to reduce the overhead of the first install. If you need the gallery module you can get this from the "Downloads" section of this site.
5) we have several non-DNN applications installed on our host just below our root (just like and on the same level as DNN). We cannot get some of these applications to run; yet, they were running fine prior to DNN being installed. The apps that are simple .html run fine. The ASP.NET apps, particularly those with their own SQL2005 databases and default.aspx are giving us problems. In some cases we can run them from our browser, but not from URL Links within DNN.
This is a configuration that can cause a lot of trouble. If you are going to share structures with DNN, I would ensure that the DNN folder is created as its own virtual directory and I would refrain from putting any other applications inside the DNN folder.