Yes, I did see that last night.
  I tried working with both the index and app_Offline files, problem is, I dont think that is my problem. But I can see where that testing method could be REAL valuable so I will put that in my bag of tricks for later. 
 
  I can get into my DNN login and work with the DNN menus, edit stuff, work with the portal aliases etc. My main portal is comming up just fine, so I dont think I need to look at the root and if thats working or not.

  I am trying to find out why my CHILD PORTAL is not comming up and I see that it dosnt seem to even be getting as far as my portalalias table. It looks like godaddy is having a problem with the URL I am putting in to access my child portal. I am suspecting that because the "page not found" page is not the standard one for IE, it is the friendly one from godaddy I believe. This is why i am trying to find a way to debug the URL from the time I hit enter (dont know if thats possible).  

  I was hoping that the index and app_Offline tricks could help me there. I put them into the portal/portalID folder but I get that friendly URLstill.

   Right now I am refreshing my dnn database from my local copy just to be sure there wasnt any corruption on my migration. But I dont know why - I REALLY THINK THE CODE IS NOT EVEN GETTING TO MY PORTALALIAS TABLE when I key in my child portal URL, and my site (main portal 0) is comming up just fine !!

  I have an email that comes with the notification, I could send you an email with a screen shot or 2, and the actual URL I am speaking of so you can SEE what I am saying?  I know you guys are busy.

  My apolgies Joe, I just tried your test again .... 
  In my main directory (my dnn is a subdirectory - wont do that again) both index and app_offline worked fine with "www.domain.com". 
   And, in my DNN directory, I was not suppose to test with my portal alias, I was just suppose to test with my main DNN URL.     
 
  This time ....
  I renamed my Default.aspx in my DNN directory.
  I put index.htm in, it was served fine.
  I then replaced it with app_Offline.htm and got page not found.

  So, It looks like I need to check my dotnetnuke configuration ? Or is that app_Offline just suppose to work in the domain directory only and not the subdirectory ?  

   thanks for that  

Thanks for your replies and suggestions Joe, 

   i see, app_offline is a page you use when you deliberatly want to take your site offline, like for updates.
index.htm is in the default documents along with default.aspx. default.aspx is ahead of index.htm so it is the document that is selected first.

After testing again ..
index.htm and default.aspx in my dnn subdirectory results in default.aspx being displayed.
app_offline, default.aspx and index.htm in dnn subdirectory results in app_offline being displayed.
I think I am ok there ?

-----------------------------

I read I should have a copy of default.aspx in my child portal directory when I create one ?
On my dev box, I create a child portal and I dont see a default.aspx in my child directory - BUT - the child portal comes up when i key in localhost/childportal.

However, on my shared hosting when I try to create a child portal I get this ..... 

Error configuring Child PortalAccess to the path 'd:\hosting\iqworkson\iqDNN\mtest' is denied. at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath) at
System.IO.Directory.InternalCreateDirectory(String fullPath, String path, DirectorySecurity dirSecurity) at System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(String path, DirectorySecurity directorySecurity) at DotNetNuke.Entities.Portals.PortalController.CreatePortal(String PortalName, UserInfo objAdminUser, String Description, String KeyWords, String TemplatePath, String TemplateFile, String HomeDirectory, String PortalAlias, String ServerPath, String ChildPath, Boolean IsChildPortal)

think this looks familiar to you .... I found a link that you responded to about this ...
<http://www.dnncreative.com/Forum/ta...fault.aspx >
"For the message about the portal, the error message seems to indicate that you may have permission problems in the portal's web directory. It looks like DotNetNuke cannot create C:\Inetpub\vhosts\scoutday.com\httpdocs\Portals\5\." 
 
I also read a post that said ... http://local.dotnetnuke.com/Communi...fault.aspx
if there is no default.aspx inside, most likely there are file system permissions missing for ASP.Net account ("Network Service" by default).


I think I am having permission problems - 
 

Success !!

I see my mistake now, I was looking for the child portal default.aspx in the portal/childPortaliD directory - WHAT WAS I THINKING ?
The default.aspx page is in a sub directory off of your dnn directory root, NOT in the child portal dir, or even just the portal dir.
And, the name of the subdirectory that holds the default.aspx is the actual name of the portal itself !!

I also had to remember that since my dnn folder is a subfolder, when I create a child portal, the alias needs to be like this ..
www.domain/mydnn/childportal
But now I can create a child portal, see the default.aspx in the folder named "your child portal name",  and, I can access the child portal.

I needed to change my root folder permissions on godaddy , so, for others going through this, I will post here what I wrote to include in my documentation about this. FrontPage extensions was the issue.

10/23/2009 (IQworks - Information Quality Works)
Setting Godaddy Permissions with Frontpage Extensions.  

  I keep frontpage extensions installed so that I can access my domain with VS2008. But the DNN folder itself needs
read/write permissions and so do all of its subfolders. In my case, my DNN is a subdirectory on my shared hosting domain.
  The point here is to change the root directory (NOT your dnn root, your domain root) permissions to read/write and, to
have those permissions inherited by all of the folders in your domain. (You can deny permissions on your sensitive folders later)
  Strange, and it could be me, but I could not access the root to make this change with frontpage extensions installed, and then,
I uninstalled frontpage extensions, made the permission changes to the root and reinstalled frontpage extensions,
and, I COULD access the root - oh well, here is how I got to the root anyway.

thanks Joe and Lee for your suggestions and help -