I'm creating a custom module that needs to create child portals, but for life of me I cannot figure out why the call to DNN to create a child portal fails during a call to GetPortalSettings located inside the CreatePortal procedure. But, creating a child portal from within the Host Site Management tab poses no problems and works every time. I have copied the same logic from the dnn admin Signup.ascx control.

I'm logged in as the host user!

I have tried stepping thru the creating of a child site using the host site manage tab, and at the call to CreatePortal copy the same value and pasting the same parameter values into the code below (obviously making sure the site does not already exist), the call still crashes at GetPortalSettings.

PortalController portalController = new PortalController();

UserInfo adminUser = UserInfo;
adminUser.Membership.Password = UserController.GetPassword(ref adminUser, String.Empty);

int intPortalId = portalController.CreatePortal(
"demoportal"
, adminUser
, "demoportal"
, ""
, @"C:\Websites\Test\Portals\_default"
, "Blank Website.template"
, ""
, @"localhost/demoportal"
, @"C:\Websites\Test\Portals\"
, @"C:\Websites\Test\demoportal"
, true);

Does anyone know where or from whom I could get some help to try resolve this issue?

Any Ideas are welcome at this stage!

The "not set to an instance of an object" message generally means that there is an uninitialized variable reference.

I've never looked at this code, but are the references to strings correct?

One way of getting more information is by putting debug symbol files in your installation. This blog entry may provide some help: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources...sense.aspx

Craig,

Thanks for you reply, I realise what the message means and yes the parameter values are correct as far as my understanding of what the values should contain. I have attached the symbol files and below is the stack trace of the error, which doesn't realy explain why I should be getting the exception.



DefaultDataProvider: DotNetNuke.Data.SqlDataProvider, DotNetNuke.SqlDataProvider
ExceptionGUID: 786a7082-9754-4795-8dda-441d64038abf
InnerException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
FileName: c:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\Maintenance\Increment\Library\Entities\Portals\PortalSettings.cs
FileLineNumber: 1047
FileColumnNumber: 47
Method: DotNetNuke.Entities.Portals.PortalSettings.GetPortalSettings
StackTrace:
Message: DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.PageLoadException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at DotNetNuke.Entities.Portals.PortalSettings.GetPortalSettings(Int32 tabID, PortalInfo portal) in c:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\Maintenance\Increment\Library\Entities\Portals\PortalSettings.cs:line 1047 at DotNetNuke.Entities.Portals.PortalController.CreatePortal(String portalName, UserInfo adminUser, String description, String keyWords, String templatePath, String templateFile, String homeDirectory, String portalAlias, String serverPath, String childPath, Boolean isChildPortal) in c:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\Maintenance\Increment\Library\Entities\Portals\PortalController.cs:line 1281 at dModules.PortalSignup.WizardView.Demo() at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

Hi Don2,

On first look at the error message, it appears that the portal settings css file is named:

PortalSettings.cs

Doesn't this file have to end in css to be recognized, like this:

PortalSettings.css

Bill

For Bill --

PortalSettings.cs is referring to a code file. The ".cs" extension is for "C#." Each .ascx file can have a .cs "code behind" file. The .ascx file contains the html and html-like stuff. The .cs file contains code that is executed when the .ascx file is loaded.

If you look at a DotNetNuke installation you'll hardly ever see .cs files because these are compiled into the .dll files in the bin directory.

It looks like this is the culprit:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at DotNetNuke.Entities.Portals.PortalSettings.GetPortalSettings(Int32 tabID, PortalInfo portal)

Now ... as to why and how to track it down ... that might be a bit trickier.

Which version of DotNetNuke is this? (So that I know I'm looking at the correct code.)

For Joe -

Thank you, Joe!

My head was in html this morning. Next time I'll wait until I finish my coffee...

Thanks, Joe!
Bill

Hi Guys,
A big thanks to all of you for your support.
I upgraded my portal to the latest version and downloaded the DNN source built it and then used my built DNN assemblies to attempt to debug the problem. Caused my some problem to get it going, but I finally found my problem.
The 5th parameter of the CreatePortal call contains the location of the template, and the 6th parameter contains the template filename.At line 1260 of PortalController.cs there is a call to the ParseTemplate method to build the site from the template. Line 1664 of PortalController.cs calls

xmlPortal.Load(TemplatePath + TemplateFile);

but the problem is the it just append the path and filename without checking for a trailing

/

on the path parameter.
A bigger issue is that the procedure traps the exception and writes to a Log4Net error log, which by default installation is not configured, thus the exception is never recorded.
The code continues only to line 1281 of PortalController.cs and creates a new instance of the PortalSettings object using the constructor at line 147 of PortalSettings.cs. This calls GetPortalSettings which in turn calls VerifyPortalTab to verify that the basic tabs/page of the new portal exist which in turn calls the VerifySpecialTab method which sets the ActiveTab object mention above.
We continue the GetPortalSettings method of PortalController.cs to line 1047

foreach (ModuleInfo module in ActiveTab.Modules)

which crashes because the Modules property of out ActiveTab object contain a NULL value.
Hence, Object reference not set.
I believe the guys in DNN code should use the System.IO.Path.Combine function to properly concatenate the 2 value into a proper filename and save everyone this hassle.
Again, many thanks to all for their input.

Don,

Thanks for the detailed report, and kudos to you for tracking this down. Whew!

You can use support.dotnetnuke.com to report bugs, make suggestions, etc. This might be a good one.

I will try to remember also suggesting that people turn on the Log4Net logging when looking at things like this, as more information definitely is available there.

Joseph,

I've been working with DNN for some years now and didn't realise that some exceptions were only written out to Log4Net and not written to the DNN EventLog, I had just taken it for granted that all exceptions were written to the eventlog. It's not like every DNN module developer is aware or needs be aware of every detail that goes on in the core. Furthermore, I never took the time to inspect the web.config to see if Log4Net was even configured. And I agree it's something DNN admins should be made aware of. If I was aware of it I wouldn't have been beating my head against the wall for the past number of days.

I will also post the suggestion to the DNN bug site, and hopefully they will take it into regard. I also wouldn't be suprised if the same problem existed elsewhere within the core.

On second reading, I noticed some spelling mistakes (sorry about that).

Many thanks,

PS: 'Don2' is a usename I sometimes use (long story), my name is Conor O'Doherty

Conor,

The Log4Net functionality is relatively new and not widely discussed. So, it's not surprising that you don't know about it. There is an entry in the DotNetNuke Wiki, and there is a short video at http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources...view.aspx.

Cheers...

Joseph,

A nice piece of FYI :-)

Cheers

Hi Guys,
I am working on the same project and i have the same issue.I read what did you post but i can't make it to find a solution for this error.Can you please add some details how to get ride of this error
Thanks in advance