I've just picked up this book after several years of putting off making the transition from Classic ASP. I'm on chapter 1 and have just created my first ASP.NET website... yay! Anyway, when I run the site (Debug --> Start without Debugging), an internet explorer window opens up with "about"blank" in the address bar. To get to the site I have to double click on the ASP.NET Development Server in the tray and click on the Root URL link.

I'm running Visual Studio 2008 on a MacBook Pro with XP MCE SP3

Any ideas what's causing this and how to fix. I'm going to get tired of this very fast otherwise!!!

Cheers,
Julian.

Hi Julian,

That's frustrating indeed, and not how it's supposed to be. A few things to check:

1. What is your standard default browser? IE?

2. What happens when you right-click a page in the Solution Explorer and choose View in Browser?

3. What is the standard homepage in your default browser? Is that about:blank?

4. What happens when you right-click a page in the Solution Explorer and Browse With? What settings do you get?

Finally, is this a clean VS 2008 install? Have you looked into resetting the settings to the default ones if it's not a fresh install?

Cheers,
Imar


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Imar Spaanjaars
http://Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
Everyone is unique, except for me.
Author of Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 : in C# and VB, ASP.NET 2.0 Instant Results and Dreamweaver MX 2004
Want to be my colleague? Then check out this post.

1. What is your standard default browser? IE?
Yes, IE is my default browser

2. What happens when you right-click a page in the Solution Explorer and choose View in Browser?
This opens up the page just fine, this is one step closer i suppose.

3. What is the standard homepage in your default browser? Is that about:blank?
My default homepage is http://www.google.com

4. What happens when you right-click a page in the Solution Explorer and Browse With? What settings do you get?
This opens the page fine in all browsers, IE, Firefox and Internal Browser.

Weird huh? Will this cause me problems further down the line if I can't resolve this? I'm assuming yes if I can't use the debugger. I'm new to ASP.NET and have only used Visual Studio for VB.NET apps. F5 and Ctrl-F5 are going to be crucial when it comes to compiling and debugging, correct?

Thanks Imar,
Julian.

Another thing to check is the following setting:

Website | Start Options.

Is "Use current page" selected?

It may get you in trouble later. While not impossible, it will be pretty frustrating if F5 doesn't get you where you want...

With regards to my question 4) below: what is set as your default browser?

If all else fails, try resetting your settings through Tools | Import and Export Settings.

Imar


---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
http://Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
Everyone is unique, except for me.
Author of Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 : in C# and VB, ASP.NET 2.0 Instant Results and Dreamweaver MX 2004
Want to be my colleague? Then check out this post.

Website --> Start Options is set to "Use curent page"

Default browser is IE 7.0.5730.13

I reset all the setting through Tools --> Import and Export Settings, result is the same as before. Ctrl-F5 gets me about:blank

Very weird.

The only things I can think of are a) a software bug / installation issue in VS 2008 or b) a browser issue.

Have you tried to make a browser like Firefox your default browser in VS 2008 and see if that helps?

Otherwise, I am pretty much out of options....

Imar


---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
http://Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
Everyone is unique, except for me.
Author of Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 : in C# and VB, ASP.NET 2.0 Instant Results and Dreamweaver MX 2004
Want to be my colleague? Then check out this post.

Thanks for your time on this Imar.

Ok so if I set Firefox as the default bowser, then Ctrl-F5 works and loads the site fine. But no go with IE still. I guess this means it's an IE browser issue.

Another quick question, my machine is running SQL Server 2005 Developer, I selected not to install the express edition when I installed Visual Studio, that's not going to affect anything right?

Thanks,
Julian.

It *is* going to affect a number of things.

First of all, the Express edition uses a different security model. It has a concept called User Instances where SQL runs under your user account without much configuration. With Express, all you need to do is add a database to App_Data, hit F5 and things will work (not sure about the F5 part in your case :-) )

Additionally, by default ASP.NET has a connectionstring for a local SQL server (installed at (local)\SqlExpress) that it uses by default for features like Membership and Roles. Again, all you need to do is add a few controls to a page, hit F5 and the database will be created for you against the (local)\SqlExpress server.

When you use a different database you need to make your own configuration changes. Those are described in Chapter 18 and Appendix B.

So, all in all, I think you're much better off installing Express (which you download here: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/express) in a "side by side" mode next to your existing installation

If you want to proceed with the dev edition then you may want to keep this article handy:
http://imar.spaanjaars.com/QuickDocId.aspx?ID=395

Cheers,

Imar


---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
http://Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
Everyone is unique, except for me.
Author of Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 : in C# and VB, ASP.NET 2.0 Instant Results and Dreamweaver MX 2004
Want to be my colleague? Then check out this post.

Thanks Imar,

I'll cross the SQL bridge when I come to it. I've been using SQL Server for a number of years with classic ASP, so I'm going to need to learn how to do it this way anyway. When I get to the chapter on SQL, I'll see if it makes sense to install express.

Thanks for all your help.

You're welcome. Good luck....

Imar


---------------------------------------
Imar Spaanjaars
http://Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
Everyone is unique, except for me.
Author of Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 : in C# and VB, ASP.NET 2.0 Instant Results and Dreamweaver MX 2004
Want to be my colleague? Then check out this post.