Access Denied

Just today, i was given an issue to solve a weird problem to Sitecore Website version 5.3. For some reason it keeps throwing access denied with query string item = /default. I was expecting something like item = /sitecore/content/root.

The issue turn out to be content item being protected. After unprotecting the item and made a publish. the website comes back to life

Query String library

Just want to share or perhaps to remind myself of a very good Query String manipulation library made by Uwe Keim

Link is below

http://www.codeproject.com/kb/aspnet/SimpleQueryString.aspx

Sitecore file explorer timeout

Recently I have been trying to fix the issue with Sitecore timing out when opening File Explorer which only happens on the Production environment.

I compared all configuration files, dlls files, sitecore files and etc to no avail. Until i try to delete "Temp_old" folder which i believe a backup of temp folder. The folder is huge and it takes forever to delete. That's when I realized that perhaps that's the folder that Sitecore has been waiting to load through File Explorer however because it took forever, it timed out. I then moved this folder away from webroot and voila it works!

As general rules of thumb, backup should have been done away from Webroot.

Anyway I am very glad that it finally resolved!

User Manager error when AD is configured

In one of my project, i encountered issue with User Manager when AD is configured. The error is as shown below

Server Error in '/' Application.

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Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:

[NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.] Sitecore.Security.UserProfile.get_State() +25 [TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.] System.RuntimeMethodHandle._InvokeMethodFast(Object target, Object[] arguments, SignatureStruct& sig, MethodAttributes methodAttributes, RuntimeTypeHandle typeOwner) +0 System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethodFast(Object target, Object[] arguments, Signature sig, MethodAttributes methodAttributes, RuntimeTypeHandle typeOwner) +71 System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture, Boolean skipVisibilityChecks) +350 System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture) +29 System.Reflection.RuntimePropertyInfo.GetValue(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] index, CultureInfo culture) +53 System.Reflection.RuntimePropertyInfo.GetValue(Object obj, Object[] index) +20 ComponentArt.Web.UI.GridItem.FillValuesFromObject(Object oObject) +305 ComponentArt.Web.UI.GridItem..ctor(Grid oGrid, Int32 iLevel, Object oObject) +138 ComponentArt.Web.UI.Grid.LoadGridItems(GridItemCollection arItems, Object[] arObjects, Int32 iLevel) +81 ComponentArt.Web.UI.Grid.DataBindToEnumerable(IEnumerable arList) +1228 ComponentArt.Web.UI.Grid.DataBind() +1039 Sitecore.Web.UI.Grids.ComponentArtGridHandler`1.DataBind() +92 Sitecore.Web.UI.Grids.ComponentArtGridHandler`1.InitializeGrid(Boolean dataBind) +516 Sitecore.Web.UI.Grids.ComponentArtGridHandler`1..ctor(Grid grid, IGridSource`1 source, Boolean dataBind) +92 Sitecore.Web.UI.Grids.ComponentArtGridHandler`1.Manage(Grid grid, IGridSource`1 source, Boolean dataBind) +94 Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Security.UserManager.UserManager.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +126 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +50 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +627

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Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.4927; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.4927

However, this error is only happening in my dev environment and the issue seems to be when with the AD configuration. Sitecore threw an error when it tries to load user's state. The code below is the code that deal with this loading

and it is located in UserManager.aspx file which is located at

Website\sitecore\shell\Applications\Security\UserManager

So two solution will be "Edit the AD field configuration" or "Remove the code from the aspx" file

XSS vulnerability

A library that can be use to prevent XSS issue is Microsoft AntiXSS library. It is preventing XSS issue by encoding the text.

Favicon not appearing for IE

Few days ago, I have been having issue with Favicon not appearing only for IE. The solution that i have tried and worked is when i move my favicon from image folder up to the webroot folder.

I have also researched that favicon will not appear in IE6 if the website hasnot been bookmarked.

Disabling Indexing

There are times where i need to disable indexing for reason such as performance (e.g. when installing huge files)

The following line is the setting for doing just that.

Default

<setting name="Indexing.UpdateInterval" value="00:05:00" />

Set it to 00:00:00 to disable

<setting name="Indexing.UpdateInterval" value="00:00:00" />