First, is anyone else having trouble using the dotnetnuke.com forums? I registered two different users, but every time I attempt to read the forums while logged in I get "A critical error has occurred. Object reference not set to an instance of an object.".

Secondly, and I've seen this issue in multiple places but it's never actually answered AFAIK: I set up an install of DNN 5.2 on a Windows 2003 R2 server and I am able to log in using Firefox, but not IE. I have tested using IE 6, 7 and 8 but after I enter the proper credentials it just takes me back to the main page as though I did not log in at all. If I log in using Firefox and view the event log, the successful login attempt is logged.  I have an unhappy client and I've fiddled with the IE security settings a LOT to no avail. Any direction would be greatly appreciated.

 - Matt

For the first, try clearing the browser's cache.

For the second, check your browser's javascript settings. I'm not sure what causes this, but ... the login does depend on javascript.

Well, I just tried logging into the DNN forums and viewing a message here on my home computer and had the same problem. No idea what's up with that.

As for the login issue, I fiddled with the IE security settings on the machine I was testing with to make them as permissive as possible, still with no dice. This issue has occurred on multiple machines for the client. My first thought was that it was because I was attempting this on a W2k3 R2 server, which is extremely picky about browser permissions, but I know he's tried it on an XP machine with IE 7 and was unable to login successfully there too. I'll fiddle with some more settings tomorrow but I'm running out of ideas.

 - Matt

Thank you for your answer, though.

Do you have a URL where we can have a go at logging in with IE?

Unfortunately, it's installed on an internal testing server that the client will not allow to be made public. They planned to use DNN for their intranet. They actually had wanted to go with Joomla but since they have an all-windows infrastructure, I figured DNN would be the better, easier-to-deploy-and-maintain solution.

So I have had a chance to attempt it again, and with javascript debugging turned on, as well as the most relaxed cookie handling policy possible, I am still unable to log in using IE, and no errors are displayed.

Are you using a custom skin, or a standard one?  If you are using a custom skin, I'd recommend that you apply Minmal Extropy to the site and see if the login problems go away.

Are you saying that you also cannot login at DotNetNuke.com?

To answer your first question, I did not change the skin. I did a web install of the product and IE failed logging in right out of the box after I finished the setup wizard. Secondly, that is correct, I am unable to log into the DNN.com website now using 3 different accounts. I created a new one yesterday and that one gave me the same error I listed in my first post. I have also tried it on my computer at work as well as at home. Something is going on with new accounts over there I guess.

If you can login with Firefox, but not with IE, and if you also try and fail with IE in compatibility mode, I'm at a loss.  But, I'm asking around ...

Has anyone found any insight on this? I've largely ignored it in an attempt to keep from billing the client for time where I'm simply treading water but if it's hopeless given the fact the server must remain internal, then I'm going to have to bite the bullet and probably pull it off and install something else.

I cannot reproduce this behavior.  I have to believe that it's something with your installation but, not being able to see it, I really can't verify that.

Yeah, I figured that without being able to see it unless someone had already encountered this it was going to be a wash. I used the web installer of SQL Server Express 2008 and then the web installer for DNN. I'm a Linux guy so I'm not sure if I can just use the control panel to uninstall everything and start over? I'm in the doghouse with this client now so I'm not sure if they're going to want me to spend the time doing that again or if they will just want me to install their original choice of Joomla. Nonetheless, Thank you for taking the time to attempt to help.

- Matt

If you have the spare time I would install a virtual PC on your local machine and then attempt installing DotNetNuke on that as a test.

I would also not use the web installer of SQL Express and manually configure it. I would also be tempted to manually install DNN as well rather than the web installer.

I demonstrated skipping the auto installers in this tutorial:
How to install DotNetNuke to Windows 7

It's for windows 7, but it will come in handy for configuring and installing SQL Server.

For info on Virtual PC:
How to setup and use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007

For other operating systems:
How to install DotNetNuke to Vista
How to install DotNetNuke 4.5 to Windows XP Pro with IIS (this is the same method for DNN 5)

The client is going to let me reinstall DNN. As part of this they are going to do a fresh patched install of Windows 2003 R2. I asked them if it would be feasible to host this test server in their DMZ since there will be nothing but a test DNN install on it so some of you that had volunteered to log in to look for yourself would have the chance to do so, in the case that the same problem crops up again after reinstall. Would you guys be again willing to do that if I could convince the client to make the machine Internet-facing?

I'll certainly take a look.

Hello again,

So the issue was the way DotNetNuke handles URL rewriting when there is an underscore in your hostname. For some reason IE balks at it while Firefox is ok with it. I reimaged the server and gave it a hostname without an underscore and everything works fine.

- Matt

I'm glad that you found the solution. 

"Avoid using the underscore (_) character in machine names. Internet standards dictate that domain names conform to the host name requirements described in Internet Official Protocol Standards RFC 952 and RFC 1123. Domain names must contain only letters (upper or lower case) and digits. Domain names can also contain dash characters ( - ) as long as the dashes are not on the ends of the name. Underscore characters ( _ ) are not supported in the host name. If you have installed WebSphere Application Server on a machine with an underscore character in the machine name, access the machine with its IP address until you rename the machine."