delete this attribute:  DataTextField="location" 

<sessionState cookieless="true" />

chang it to

<sessionState cookieless="false"  />

hi tried that, still no success, the session state was expilicity set in my web.config I had to put the line in manually

this is the link its trying to access, i need to get rid of  http://localhost/website/%20http

http://localhost/website/%20http://domain.net//download/RP_FV.doc%20

the bound value has problem.  you need to change the configuration of your datasource to get the correct value for the Id.  if you use sqldatasource, you could run your query in a query window to see the result.

 I see two problems.  First of all the spaces (which get translated to %20) and especially the one at the end of the link.

Also, it's coming up as local host before the actual URL.  Wherever you're getting the link info from (I suspect a database but it could have been from dragging and dropping in design view too) has the wrong info in it.

If you're getting the info from a database you'll need to check the record in the DB.  If the URL is hard coded into the page you'll have to  look at the source view and manually make the URL start at the "http://"

-JA

hi my data souce is an XML doc, it populates a data grid on page load, so basiucally i want to be able ot edit/update records. i load them to a dataset.,

Well then you need to look at your XML document.  The links themselves are getting  "http://localhost/Website/%20" from your datasource unless you are having it prepend (yes, I just made up an antonym for append) it in the codebehind somewhere.

Look at where the link is created in your source (it's possible you have that localhost part in the actual hyperlink markup itself).
Look in your databind statement in your code behind page.
Look in your datasource at the record itself.

If you can't find it, post all three of those. 

-JA 

my source:
  <Module>
    <name>
      module name
    </name>
    <mediatype>
      DOC
    </mediatype>
    <location>
     http://domain.company.net//download/word_doc.doc
    </location>
  </Module>

data bind code:

DataSet ds = new DataSet();
ds.ReadXml(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath + "App_Data\\Docs\\Modules.xml");
GridView1.DataSource = ds;
GridView1.AutoGenerateColumns = false;
GridView1.DataBind();