Sitefinity 4 - WebResource.axd responses are blank

I have installed the Sitefinity 4 CMS for one of our clients on their Windows 2008 hosting package (with SQL Server 2008 R2 addon) at DiscountASP.

The front-end of the site is functional, but there is an issue with the dashboard. On almost every page in the dashboard (clarification: the administration panel) the contents are blank.

Going further, I will say that the actual page contains a large amount of actual HTML and JavaScript data. The problem isn't the actual page generation. As most know, when ASP.NET has to get javascript and css files out of the compiled assembly, it does so by registering a handler for WebResource.axd requests in the web.config file.

Many of these resource requests return exactly what I anticipated; the css/javascript data for the site. The problem lies in that for much of the axd requests for the Sitefinity Dashboard, the axd files are simply blank. To be precise, the files contain two empty lines, leading me to believe the actual file content is composed of a single line-break.

The issue is persistent, as there's never an instance where the returned data varies, but it should be noted that some axd calls work fine, and others return blank data. It should be further noted that this strange occurrence happens even between two requests to the same axd file.

Here's a copy/paste of the <system.webServer> section of my web.config file. Note: A section exists for httpHandlers, but to my understanding Windows Server 2008/IIS7 only cares about this section, and ignores the other.

Code:

  <system.webServer> 
    <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false"/>
    <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">
      <remove name="WebDAVModule" />
      <remove name="UrlRoutingModule"/>
      <remove name="ScriptModule"/>
      <remove name="RadUploadModule"/>
      <remove name="Sitefinity"/>
      <remove name="SitefinityAnalyticsModule"/>
      <remove name="SitefinityAtompubModule"/>
      <add name="ScriptModule" preCondition="managedHandler" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
      <add name="Sitefinity" type="Telerik.Sitefinity.Web.SitefinityHttpModule, Telerik.Sitefinity"/>
      <add name="RadUploadModule" type="Telerik.Web.UI.RadUploadHttpModule, Telerik.Web.UI"/>
      <add name="SitefinityAnalyticsModule" type="Telerik.Sitefinity.Analytics.Server.DependencyResolution.Module.DependencyRegistrarHttpModule, Telerik.Sitefinity.Analytics.Server.DependencyResolution"/>
      <add name="SitefinityAtompubModule" type="Telerik.Sitefinity.Security.SitefinityAtompubModule, Telerik.Sitefinity" />
    </modules>
    <handlers>
      <remove name="WebDAV" />
      <remove name="ScriptHandlerFactory"/>
      <remove name="ScriptHandlerFactoryAppServices"/>
      <remove name="ScriptResource"/>
      <remove name="UrlRoutingHandler"/>
      <remove name="WildCard"/>
      <remove name="WildCard32"/>
      <remove name="Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler"/>
      <remove name="Telerik.RadUploadProgressHandler"/>
      <remove name="Telerik.Sitefinity.FilesDownloadHandler"/>
      <remove name="Telerik.Sitefinity.LibrariesRadUploadHandler"/>
      <remove name="Telerik.Sitefinity.AsyncImageUploadHandler"/>
      <remove name="Telerik.Sitefinity.AsyncFileUploadHandler"/>
      <remove name="Telerik.Web.UI.SpellCheckHandler"/>
      <remove name="Telerik_Web_UI_WebResource_axd" />
      <remove name="Telerik_Web_UI_DialogHandler_aspx" />
      <add name="ScriptHandlerFactory" verb="*" path="*.asmx" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
      <add name="ScriptHandlerFactoryAppServices" verb="*" path="*_AppService.axd" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
      <add name="ScriptResource" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="GET,HEAD" path="ScriptResource.axd" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
      <add name="WildCard" path="*" verb="*" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="None" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" />
      <add name="WildCard32" path="*" verb="*" modules="IsapiModule" scriptProcessor="%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="None" preCondition="classicMode,runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness32" />
      <add name="Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler" path="Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler.axd" verb="*" type="Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler, Telerik.Web.UI"/>
      <add name="Telerik.RadUploadProgressHandler" path="Telerik.RadUploadProgressHandler.ashx" verb="*" type="Telerik.Web.UI.Upload.RadUploadProgressHandler, Telerik.Web.UI"/>
      <add name="Telerik.Sitefinity.FilesDownloadHandler" path="Telerik.Sitefinity.FilesDownloadHandler.ashx" verb="*" type="Telerik.Sitefinity.Modules.Files.FilesDownloadHandler, Telerik.Sitefinity"/>
      <add name="Telerik.Sitefinity.LibrariesRadUploadHandler" path="Telerik.Sitefinity.LibrariesRadUploadHandler.ashx" verb="*" type="Telerik.Sitefinity.Modules.Libraries.Web.LibrariesRadUploadHandler, Telerik.Sitefinity"/>
      <add name="Telerik.Sitefinity.ThumbnailUploadHandler" path="Telerik.Sitefinity.ThumbnailUploadHandler.ashx" verb="*" type="Telerik.Sitefinity.Modules.Libraries.Web.ThumbnailUploadHandler, Telerik.Sitefinity"/>
      <add name="Telerik.Sitefinity.AsyncImageUploadHandler" path="Telerik.Sitefinity.AsyncImageUploadHandler.ashx" verb="*" type="Telerik.Sitefinity.Modules.Libraries.Web.AsyncImageUploadHandler, Telerik.Sitefinity"/>
      <add name="Telerik.Sitefinity.AsyncFileUploadHandler" path="Telerik.Sitefinity.AsyncFileUploadHandler.ashx" verb="*" type="Telerik.Sitefinity.Workflow.AsyncFileUploadHandler, Telerik.Sitefinity"/>
      <add name="Telerik.Web.UI.SpellCheckHandler" verb="*" path="Telerik.Web.UI.SpellCheckHandler.axd" type="Telerik.Web.UI.SpellCheckHandler, Telerik.Web.UI"/>
      <add name="Telerik_Web_UI_WebResource_axd" verb="*" path="Telerik.Web.UI.WebResource.axd" preCondition="integratedMode" type="Telerik.Web.UI.WebResource" />
      <add name="Telerik_Web_UI_DialogHandler_aspx" verb="*" preCondition="integratedMode" path="Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler.aspx" type="Telerik.Web.UI.DialogHandler" />
    </handlers>
  </system.webServer>

 

As of this writing, Sitefinity 4.0 and DiscountASP.net's hosting packages do not play well together:

http://www.sitefinity.com/devnet/forums/sitefinity-4-x/general-discussions/admin-session-timeouts-frequently.aspx

This is something we (Telerik) are working address, but the memory requirements of Sitefinity 4.0 coupled with the memory limitations of DiscountASP.net's hosting accounts create stability challenges.

The issue you're mentioning above is not one of those problems, but even if you solve this challenge you will encounter others. Sorry for the troubles. We hope to have better solutions for our Q2 2011 release.

Gabe Sumner
Telerik | Sitefinity CMS