I got this error message while trying to set up my on line site to use a different database from the default crap-tastic AspNetSqlProvider that takes 3 minutes to boot up with each web hit.
Here's the entire (incorrect) error message as IIS sends it.

Server Application Unavailable

The web application you are attempting to access on this web server is currently unavailable.  Please hit the "Refresh" button in your web browser to retry your request.
Administrator Note: An error message detailing the cause of this specific request failure can be found in the application event log of the web server. Please review this log entry to discover what caused this error to occur.

The first clue I got that something was Micro-softy was that there was no event logged in the event logger. I think I may have caused this problem when I logged in to the server with Remote Desktop and with Visual Web Developer at the same time, trying to make it select the correct database.

The Solution

1. go to the webserver (or remote-desktop in)
2. open IIS Manager (Microsoft Internet Information Services)
3. browse to the server and website that is broken
4. stop the website
5. open the site's properties page (right click the name of the site and pick "properties")
6. select the ASP.NET tab and change the .net version. Click Apply.
7. change the version back to the right (latest) version. Click Apply.
8. close the properties page and restart the website.

OracleGetClob Woes

Must... type... this... before... head... explodes!

Ok, I have constructed a query and I'm fetching data from the database, including an Oracle Clob column.

The regular columns work great and look like this:

description = reader.GetValue(5).ToString();

bot for some inane reason,

description = reader.GetValue(6).ToString();

...when run against a clob field will not work if your life depends on it.

I have been to a total of 25 web pages now looking of one solitary example of how to read an oracleclob, and there isn't one! Just one f'ing example is all I need, to see what needs to be done to put the data from my clob object into my string object.

There are many sites that contain volumes about the OracleGetClob() method, and some about the Fetchsize property, but not one solid example that starts with a clob and ends up with the text in a string!

How does it all work together? Anyone?

This is so goddamned frustrating. Where is my Delphi CD?

Microsoft! Please let the pain come to an end!

I have a website that sells a peice of software. My client wants to keep 90 seperate little pages, one for each little "feature" of the program. This is the perfect application for using a "web template", and store all these features into a database.

So, Lets set up the database first.

Piece of cake, right? so now, I need to get 90 of these pop-up windows into the datafields...

So I design a form for editing the data...

I can run the form, it shows my empty data table. I add a row and enter the small data, and then I cut/paste the feature window text into the "Feature Text" column.

Oh no! it only accepts the FIRST LINE of text! BUT WAIT! this is a "text" type, it should just KNOW that we want to put free-form text in here. Ok, so now I want to go into the properties of the FEATURE TEXT column and set Multiline to True.

What's this? There IS NO multiline property! Ok now lets hit the trusty F1 key.

After waiting an horribly long time, I search for Multiline Text Fields and nothing that comes back is relevant to what I'm trying to do.

Just to make the point come home a little better, I could solve this problem with Oracle and Delphi WITHOUT EVEN HAVING TO WRITE A PROGRAM! PL/SQL developer allows me to pop open a window on a CLOB (text) field and cut/paste/edit/whatever. This whole project would take about 15 minutes. BUT IN VISUAL STUDIO IT SEEMS TO BE IMPOSSIBLE!

Please, Microsoft! We beg you! Buy a copy of PL/SQL Developer and MAKE SQL SERVER WORK LIKE THAT!

---

Update: There IS a way... I will update on Friday! (Not this Friday, but "A" Friday)

AAAAAAAH!

I found this great site that *almost* seemed to discuss what I want...

http://quickstarts.asp.net/QuickStartv20/aspnet/doc/pages/pages.aspx#serverctrls

But don't bother going there unless you want to do everything in Visual BASIC!

God Damn, Microsoft!

Microsoft, your Help is Crap!

Ok, I want to use asp.net to build a simple email form that send me an email whenever someone wants to contact me from my website. I figured that after all the easy-login stuff on the toolbar, there would be some kind of ready-made gizmo.

There isn't

Furthermore, when you use the trusty F1, and type asp email form tutorial or simple form tutorial, you get nothing but totally irrelevant crap from the results screen.

So I googled it and ALL the results fall into one of 2 categories.

1. downloadable components
2. vb.net

What the hell?

So here I am writing like 300 lines of code, and I know it HAS TO BE easier than this... why is it any harder than this?

smtp.send(
 mailmessage(
  request.querystrings("to").tostring(),
  request.querystrings("from").tostring(),
  request.querystrings("subject").tostring(),
  request.querystrings("body").tostring()
 )
)

Why, indeed?

Irrelevant Crap!

Thank you for participating in our beta test. Please tell us how we can improve Visual Studio for you

STOP INCLUDING IRRELEVANT CRAP IN THE HELP SEARCH RESULTS

Update!

Let's add THIS to the list of irritations while we're here!

Ok, What am I doing wrong here...

My web page looks like this in my local machine:

So I "publish" it. to the webserver, which is 4 feet to the right.

Ok, let's go to the live website and compare to the test website...

Ok, Parser Error Message: Child nodes not allowed. What does that mean? Apparently there is an error in my web.config file, which I never touched... It was generated automatically from Visual Web Developer. From my decades of programming experience, I am estimating that it's because I need to add the beta version of the .NET library to my server. But why cant the error just say You have to upgrade to the latest version of the .NET Framework to view this page?

I am upgrading the server now (should take an hour). I will bet you that it requires a reboot and that there is still an error after the upgrade is complete.

Meanwhile, let's look for this error in the help system. Searching for <providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5"/> Let's search the Help!

Nothing. Lets check the questions site... Oh this is nice: from this page:

That's why it's called a BETA there champ...It has bugs.

Real helpful there... Ok lets run this error by Google.

Ok, turning to Google.

There is a really good post here - it's a lot of reading but it seems like they have a handle on the problem. Why is there nothing about this on the Microsoft site? I can't believe they have never heard of this problem!