Moving DNN Sites (Avodiding problems with the repository module) 

Many of my regular readers have been using my guides for doing DNN site moves and performing backups and restores from a production environment to another. Overall I have not heard of any issues with the processes I have listed in the past. That was until I actually performed the migration of this site to it's new server the week before Memorial Day. This blog post will cover the issues I encountered while migrating the site to my new hosting provider, these issues were all caused by the Repository module.

First of all before I performed the migration of these sites I was sure to follow all of my listed recommendations by taking backups of both the site and the database. The actual process of uploading and haveing the db re-attached on my new hosting provider went flawlessly. However, on FreeDotNetNukeStuff.com one of the other sites hosted off of this DNN installation I was receiving a "Device not ready" error message. Now, I am familiar with the "Device Not Ready" error message from my many attempts to access a CD-ROM drive before it was ready, but why would my repository be throwing this error?

Well the issue is related to three of the settings within the repository module; Folder for Approved Files, Folder for Unapproved Files, and Folder for Anonymous Files.  Each of these settings reflect the full path to the respository storage locations.  These paths were still pointing to my old hosting providers locations, now updating this should have been very simple, however, in shared hosting environments it is not always easy to know your installation directory. the good news is that when you are logged in a host you have a few options to find your installation directory.

First you can go to "Host" -> "Host Settings" and your physical path will be listed under the "Configuration" section.  Secondly if you are logged in as an Admin you can go to "Admin" -> "File Manager" -> "Upload" and the "Portal Root" label will provide you the full path to your portal root element.

Now that you have your information you can update your individual respository modules to point to the correct location.  In my case I had multiple instances of the repository and opted to modify the values directly in the database via the "ModuleSettings" table, however, in most circumstances it is easier to make the modifications manually.

I hope that this notice helps someone else avoid this issue in the future when they are performing site migrations.

Share/Save This Article:      

Comments