The solution is to manually add the applicationName attribute to the <providers> node of your web.config file and give it a value. By default ASP.NET auto generates the applicationName using your project’s root directory path if the applicationName attribute isn’t declared in your web.config. The applicationName is important because your ASP.NET Application Service database uses it in a number of tables. The applicationName is a relatively long string of characters and will look similar to: cea2acdb-97b7-4b58-ad12-22efg3bd582q.

If you move your project to any other directory either local or remote, a new applicationName string will be auto generated and added to your ASP.NET Application Service database. Any new users, roles, or profiles you create will be tied to the new applicationName. Once you move your application to a new directory, any users, roles, or profile information you created while your project resided in your previous directory will not function or throw the following error: “Validation of viewstate MAC failed. If this application is hosted by a Web Farm or cluster, ensure that <machineKey> configuration specifies the same validationKey and validation algorithm. Auto Generate cannot be used in a cluster.” Each time you move your project to a different directory you’ll run into this problem.

To solve this, first go to the Server Explorer in Visual Studio and open the database containing your ASP.NET Application Service database. Right click on the table named aspnet_Applications (dbo) and select “Show Table Data”. Look to see what your ApplicationName and LoweredApplicationName fields are named. It should be “/”. If it’s named anything other than “/”, rename both fields “/” as shown below.

Next open your web.config file. Add the applicationName attribute to your provider declaration(s). You should set the applicationName attribute equal to “/” to match the “/” fields in your aspnet_Applications (dbo) table. An example is provided below:

<roleManager enabled=”true” defaultProvider=”CustomizedRoleProvider”>
<providers>
<add name=”CustomizedRoleProvider”
type=”System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider”
connectionStringName=”MyConnectionString”
applicationName=”/”
/>
</providers>
</roleManager>

<membership defaultProvider=”CustomizedMembershipProvider”>
<providers>
<add name=”CustomizedMembershipProvider”
type=”System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider”
connectionStringName=”MyConnectionString”
applicationName=”/”
minRequiredPasswordLength=”5″
minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters=”0″
/>
</providers>
</membership>

Make sure you add the applicationName attribute to all your users, roles, profile, and/or any other <providers> nodes in your web.config or you’ll run into problems. In the example above I’m using both the Role and Membership providers so I added it to both declarations.
Once you declare the applicationName attribute, ASP.NET will always use that application name when writing and connecting to the ASP.NET application service database regardless of where your application resides.

Steve Kozyk
CEO/Founder ITegrity
skozyk[at]itegritygroup.com
www.itegritygroup.com

ASP.NET is not limited to script languages, it allows you to make use of .NET languages like C#, J#, VB, etc. It allows developers to build very compelling applications by making use of Visual Studio, the development tool provided by Microsoft. ASP.NET is purely server-side technology. It is built on a common language runtime that can be used on any Windows server to host powerful ASP.NET web sites and technologies.

In the early days of the Web i.e. before the release of Internet Information Services (IIS) in 1997, the contents of web pages were largely static. These web pages needed to be constantly, and manually, modified. There was an urgent need to create web sites that were dynamic and would update automatically.

Microsoft’s Active Server Pages (ASP) was brought to the market to meet this need. ASP executed on the server side, with its output sent to the user’s web browser, thus allowing the server to generate dynamic web pages based on the actions of the user.

These server-side technologies are important contributions to the development of the Web. Amazon.com, eBay.com, and many other popular web sites use ASP.NET as the framework for their site; without ASP.NET it would not be possible.

12 important advantages ASP.NET offers over other Web development models:

1. ASP.NET drastically reduces the amount of code required to build large applications.

2. With built-in Windows authentication and per-application configuration, your applications are safe and secured.

3. It provides better performance by taking advantage of early binding, just-in-time compilation, native optimization, and caching services right out of the box.

4. The ASP.NET framework is complemented by a rich toolbox and designer in the Visual Studio integrated development environment. WYSIWYG editing, drag-and-drop server controls, and automatic deployment are just a few of the features this powerful tool provides.

5. Provides simplicity as ASP.NET makes it easy to perform common tasks, from simple form submission and client authentication to deployment and site configuration.

6. The source code and HTML are together therefore ASP.NET pages are easy to maintain and write. Also the source code is executed on the server. This provides a lot of power and flexibility to the web pages.

7. All the processes are closely monitored and managed by the ASP.NET runtime, so that if process is dead, a new process can be created in its place, which helps keep your application constantly available to handle requests.

8. It is purely server-side technology so, ASP.NET code executes on the server before it is sent to the browser.

9. Being language-independent, it allows you to choose the language that best applies to your application or partition your application across many languages.

10. ASP.NET makes for easy deployment. There is no need to register components because the configuration information is built-in.

11. The Web server continuously monitors the pages, components and applications running on it. If it notices any memory leaks, infinite loops, other illegal activities, it immediately destroys those activities and restarts itself.

12. Easily works with ADO.NET using data-binding and page formatting features. It is an application which runs faster and counters large volumes of users without having performance problems

In short ASP.NET, the next generation version of Microsoft’s ASP, is a programming framework used to create enterprise-class web sites, web applications, and technologies. ASP.NET developed applications are accessible on a global basis leading to efficient information management. Whether you are building a small business web site or a large corporate web application distributed across multiple networks, ASP.NET will provide you all the features you could possibly need…and at an affordable cost: FREE!

Steve Kozyk
CEO/Founder ITegrity
skozyk[at]itegritygroup.com
www.itegritygroup.com
What is ASP.NET? -Top 12 Advantages of ASP.NET

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