My experience installing the Club Site Starter Kit on CrystalTech.com

I want to learn more about the new features of asp.net 2.0 and I thought what better way than to play around with one of the starter kits.  But getting the club SK setup and installed is not as easy as I would have liked.  Pushing through all the troubleshooting has taught me a few things.  I found the forums  on asp.net to be invaluable to me so I thought I would contribute.

First I downloaded and installed Visual Web Developer 2005 Express and the Club Starter Kit.  I created a new project from the template and when I tried to run the application I ran into the dreaded 600 error.  It turns out I downloaded an old version of the .vsi which had an old SQL Express database that was not compatible with my version.  To fix this error I removed the old club template and project and then installed the latest .vsi from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/starterkit/default.aspx#club.  Now when I created another project I was able to get the site working on my local machine. W00T!

My next task was to change the database from my local SQL 2005 Express to a SQL 2005 server hosted by CrystalTech.com.  I am a complete newbie when it comes to configuring databases.  So it is no surprise that this is where I ran into most of my troubles.  What I didn’t know at the time is that the club starter kit uses two databases Club.mdf stores the information about the site and ASPNETDB.mdf stores information about the users.  The first thing I did was create a Club database on CrystalTech.  I downloaded SQL Server Management Studio Express (CTP) and ran the SQL Server Script for the Club SK to create the tables and stored procedures in my database.  I modified my sql connection string in the web.config to:

<add name="ClubSiteDB" connectionString="Server=<DB_Server>.webcontrolcenter.com;Database=<DB_Name>;User ID=<DB_Username>;Password=<DB_Password>;Trusted_Connection=False" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>

When I tried to run the application I got an error saying it couldn’t find an aspnet_membership table or something.  I searched around and discovered that I need to configure asp.net 2.0 application services to use my CrystalTech SQL Server.  These references helped me configure my CrystalTech database:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/08/25/423703.aspx
http://community.discountasp.net/default.aspx?m=8785&f=25&p=1

So I followed the steps in the links above and added the application services to my database and added this code to my web.config:

<remove name="LocalSqlServer"/>
<add name="LocalSqlServer" connectionString="Server=<DB_Server>.webcontrolcenter.com;Database=<DB_Name>;User ID=<DB_Username>;Password=<DB_Password>;Trusted_Connection=False" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>

But I found another error the next time I tried to run the club site.  It said I had an invalid object name ‘dbo.events’.  I tracked down the problem in the forum and found that because I did not run my SQL Server Script for the Club SK as user “dbo” the application failed because the Club Site has these values hard-coded in.  The solution is to search through the code and remove the “dbo.” from the code.  Referenced forum posts:
http://forums.asp.net/920683/ShowPost.aspx
http://forums.asp.net/1118907/ShowPost.aspx

Now finally I was able to run the Club Site SK from my local machine connected to the SQL Server on CrystalTech.  I published the site to my root website directory and it works!  In retrospect I was not impressed with the broken .vsi template I started out with or that the latest template hard-codes the assumption that the tables were created by user “dbo”.  But with the help of the community I was able to work through the issues and get the site up and running.  So thanks everyone!

nice, well i think i have goten somewhere thanks to your help, but still not where i want to be i think i have followed every step but here is my new problem. The site works perfectly, everypage until i try to login as a member or create a mebership account. i get the following error message: Could not find stored procedure 'dbo.aspnet_CheckSchemaVersion'. maybe a dumb mistake? please help

Mike

Are you able to open the Web Site Administration Tool, available from the Website…ASP.NET Configuration menu?  Once you have opened the tool verify that it contains an "Administrators" role.

I can remember running the asp.net configuration setup tool multiple times both from the command line and the GUI.  So maybe re-running the tool will help.

From looking at the error message it seems like the stored procedure is expecting the aspnet_CheckSchemaVersion to have been created by user dbo.  Your stored procedures might have been created by your personal crystaltech database username.  So my observation is that you are running into a similar "dbo" problem.  Maybe there is someway to make the dbo user the owner of the stored procedure.  Like I said before, I am a new to this and I don't have all the answers.  But hopefully I have been some help.

Note that if you create a user in the Web Site Administration Tool that they will not show up on the membership page.  See http://forums.asp.net/1155458/ShowPost.aspx. 

Here are some other problems that I have run into once I got my site up and running.

Annoucement text is limited to 500 chars: http://forums.asp.net/1183816/ShowPost.aspx

User can't update their email address: http://forums.asp.net/1132329/ShowPost.aspx

When you created your club DB on crystaltech, they were probably assigned to your username, not DBO.  Find what user owns the tables, and you can do two things...

1) do a find in all files/replace all occurences of "DBO." with "youruser."

or

2) remove all occurences of DBO. in your source code files

luke.walker wrote:

Are you able to open the Web Site Administration Tool, available from the Website…ASP.NET Configuration menu?  Once you have opened the tool verify that it contains an "Administrators" role.

No i cant anymore, this is the message i get:

There is a problem with your selected data store. This can be caused by an invalid server name or credentials, or by insufficient permission. It can also be caused by the role manager feature not being enabled. Click the button below to be redirected to a page where you can choose a new data store.

The following message may help in diagnosing the problem: Could not find stored procedure 'dbo.aspnet_CheckSchemaVersion'.

Very odd i think i remember doing this before, but one thing when i do that it runs a local version of sql, shouldn't it try to use the server on crystaltech

luke.walker wrote:

I can remember running the asp.net configuration setup tool multiple times both from the command line and the GUI.  So maybe re-running the tool will help.

I'm glad you mentioned this, i was wondering if you had a link to more detailed instructions because this was the first time i have ever used this and your instructions seemed a bit vague, thanks!

luke.walker wrote:

From looking at the error message it seems like the stored procedure is expecting the aspnet_CheckSchemaVersion to have been created by user dbo.  Your stored procedures might have been created by your personal crystaltech database username.  So my observation is that you are running into a similar "dbo" problem.  Maybe there is someway to make the dbo user the owner of the stored procedure.  Like I said before, I am a new to this and I don't have all the answers.  But hopefully I have been some help.

Very true, but i did run a find replace on all dbo, where is this one coming from? I even used another program to search all the files and it didn't pick up the dbo.

thanks, i will keep trying but let me know if you can help

Mike Olsen

foxmcf wrote:

When you created your club DB on crystaltech, they were probably assigned to your username, not DBO.  Find what user owns the tables, and you can do two things...

1) do a find in all files/replace all occurences of "DBO." with "youruser."

ok i will ask them and see what they say.

foxmcf wrote:

or

2) remove all occurences of DBO. in your source code files

well i did that and that's what got all the other pages working, see nothing worked until i did the find replace then every page worked until i tried to login or create a user account

thanks

Mike Olsen

yea crystaltech only gave me the SQl database username and password that i set-up, is that what i should use?

mike olsen

From what I understand, the club site's login control uses the new asp.net new website administration tool to store the data.  When you run the club site on your local machine it creates a new database in the App_Data folder called ASPNETDB.mdf.  That is where it stores all the asp.net membership, role managment, and personalization data.  You want to configure the asp.net 2.0 application services use your CrystalTech SQL Server.  Here is an msdn article that describes how to do that:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/ConfigASPNET_SQL.asp

The article originally appeared Scott's blog that I linked to as a reference in my first post:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/08/25/423703.aspx

While I was searching around for more info on this topic I found that Bruce also wrote some instructions on how to do this which I linked to in my first post:
http://community.discountasp.net/default.aspx?m=8785&f=25&p=1

fairchild118 wrote:

yea crystaltech only gave me the SQl database username and password that i set-up, is that what i should use?

mike olsen

When I created my database on crsytaltech I also created a username and password for it using their control center.  That is the username and password that I use to access the database.

I think the asp.net application service may have messed up when you first configured your sql server.  You could try removing those tables from your database and configuring the sql database again.

luke.walker wrote:

From what I understand, the club site's login control uses the new asp.net new website administration tool to store the data.  When you run the club site on your local machine it creates a new database in the App_Data folder called ASPNETDB.mdf.  That is where it stores all the asp.net membership, role managment, and personalization data.  You want to configure the asp.net 2.0 application services use your CrystalTech SQL Server.  Here is an msdn article that describes how to do that:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/ConfigASPNET_SQL.asp

The article originally appeared Scott's blog that I linked to as a reference in my first post:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/08/25/423703.aspx

While I was searching around for more info on this topic I found that Bruce also wrote some instructions on how to do this which I linked to in my first post:
http://community.discountasp.net/default.aspx?m=8785&f=25&p=1

fairchild118 wrote:

yea crystaltech only gave me the SQl database username and password that i set-up, is that what i should use?

mike olsen

When I created my database on crsytaltech I also created a username and password for it using their control center.  That is the username and password that I use to access the database.

I think the asp.net application service may have messed up when you first configured your sql server.  You could try removing those tables from your database and configuring the sql database again.

OK thanks guys, i got everything working except, when i try to login, nothing happens, just goes back to the home page. I can reset my password fine. Maybe a dumb newbie mistake.

Mike Olsen

Very simple and quick article here for changing your CrystalTech ID to DBO on all your tables and stored procedures.  I tried it and took me less then 1 minute to make all the changes.

http://weblogs.asp.net/owscott/archive/2004/01/30/65229.aspx

Many many thanks to you Luke--you saved me hours with your post!

I'm getting this error on the club site since publishing it to Network Solutions, any suggestions to correct this problem?

Line 100: <compilers>
Line 101: <compiler language="c#;cs;csharp" extension=".cs" type="Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider,System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" warningLevel="4" compilerOptions="/warnaserror-">
Line 102: <providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5"/></compiler>
Line 103: <compiler language="vb;vbs;visualbasic;vbscript" extension=".vb" type="Microsoft.VisualBasic.VBCodeProvider, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" compilerOptions="/optioninfer+">
Line 104: <providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5"/></compiler></compilers></system.codedom>