I have a DNN 5.6.3 site that I'm moving from one hosting vendor to another; the new vendor is Arvixe.com.  This is not an upgrade; it's a straight site move; I rebuild this site as a test bed on my Win7 laptop all the time.  I have the files uploaded; I have the database restored.  The new vendor has a pre-production URL I can use to test the site.  But when I tried to go to the new site, it took me to the "under construction" page in the /Install directory.  Usually when this happens after an install, one just deletes the /Install/UnderConstruction.htm from the address bar and refreshes it; but that didn't work, it just went back. 

I last upgraded this site in I think June 2011, and apparently I forgot to delete the /Install directory after I was done.  I'm fairly sure I should have done this, but I've rebuilt the site on the laptop several times without deleting it, and I never had this problem.  Since I don't think the /Install directory should be there, I deleted it, which means the UnderConstruction.htm page no longer displays, but when I try to load the site the address bar still displays this URL, even though the directory and the file no longer exist on the site:

http://oaklandsymphonychorus.org.nigh...

I've restarted the site; I've restarted the app pool; I've changed the default file list so default.aspx is on top.  I can't load the site.  Help, please??

Bill,

The directory is there because, after thinking about it (it's been on my production site for at least 6 months based on my backups, so it can't be a problem), I put it back, especially after reading a post by Sebastian Leupold on why we keep it around. I must have remembered the "have to remove it" from a much earlier version.

Sleeping on the problem overnight, I came to the same conclusion you did:  it's a configuration problem at the host.  My move has already been delayed half a day because the site bindings for the temporary URL were pointing at the wrong IP; and now this. Worse, I can't delete the link from the control panel or even add a second one.  Back on the phone with the vendor. At least when presented with a problem, they do fix it.

 As for are they experienced - well, they seem to be a well regarded ASP hoster, they won an award this year from hosting-review.com, and they've been in business since 2003.  You know as well as I do that no hosting company is perfect; and I really want to get off my current vendor, Chillox, because of their email policy.  Sigh.

Arvixe support suggested I should add the new dedicated IP and (non-www) domain name to my local Windows hosts file, to try to get to the temporary site. I tried this, but I still get the "under construction" page either with the domain name or with the IP.

I really believe I won't be able to open that site on their systems and evaluate it unless one of two things happens:

1. I swing the DNS, and make any necessary changes and patches on a live site.  I still have to build some virtual directories to support our podcast feed to Feedburner.
2. Somebody adds the temporary URL string to the portalAlias field in the site SQL database,

I say "somebody" because on their shared system, I don't have the authority to do the update myself - or to remove it after we do go live. 

First, am I right?  If we add the temporary address string to portalAlias, in the third position behind oaklandsymphonychorus.org and www.oaklandsymphonychorus.org, would that let me open the site and work on it??  Second, would this be advisable?  Arvixe support people seem to feel it's dangerous.  I begin to think I know more about DNN than they do.