Invalid_Viewsta te

[Chris Sutton]

I have a production asp.net application that is getting seemingly random
Viewstate errors.

It is a single server, so there isn't any issue with posting viewstate to a
different server that what it was received from. Also, it happens with users
that have to go through a firewall and users that don't.

It happens across the a broad array of pages, most of them are simple grid
pages that you can drill down into to collect more input data.

Also, the viewstate size is typically 5-30K depending on the page. Never
gets anywhere near 1024K.

We have also installed sp1 for the 1.1 release of the .net framework, so we
can collect more detailed viewstate errors.

I'll post the most typical error that we get in a follow up message.

If anybody knows what actually causes this I would be very interested in
knowing. A resolution would be even better.

Chris Sutton

[P.J]

As for an example of the key I used, here is the section in system.web
of the machine.config file:

<machineKey
validationKey=" 501CCD40823C2A6 27CEDD026581211 B94DF5EF821008B 6149BA4E6EE73A2 D0B1E27E3297044 1D954F1CEF1870C A5FD5EAAD4E8377 6CE2B5B5FD9F0A6 661FB91E"
decryptionKey=" 0BA0B07AB3E6971 4D0D387AE74E92A DD4B7BB70DB79EB 478"
validation="SHA 1"/>

(the validationKey is on one line)

[omark]

Can someone who has this problem fixed give the exact steps needed to
eliminate the problem. It seems several solutions were mentioned, but
not enough details were layed out.

Thanks,

[Alvin Bruney [MVP - ASP.NET]]

That's good stuff, i'll push this out to MSDN as a solution. P.J. send me
your full name if you require credit for the solution va******@hotmai l.com
subject line Invalid Viewstate

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
"P.J" <pj*********@sn clavalin.com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ z14g2000cwz.goo glegroups.com.. .

I successfully tested the solution by adding a key in the
machine.config file of the server.

I use this link to make a small console application (in C#) to generate
a key (SHA1):
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q312906

Then I updated the machine.config file under the system.web section
with the output produce and tried to make the Invalid_Viewsta te error
come up again. But it didn't show up, so it is an acceptable solution
for us.

I agree that on a commercial hosting server, this solution might not be
appropriate since every web site will share the same key. I have no
answer for that beside disabling the application pool 'health' feature,
but then, you lose the advantage of using Windows 2003 and IIS 6.

[Huzaifa Tapal]

Unfortunately, I tried this solution out for my scenario and it does not
work. Here is what my application is running on:

- Windows 2003 HyperThreaded II6 Server
- Application Pool's identity is user account
- Using FormsAuthentica tion
- Using Server.Transfer to go from page to page taking advantage of
performance gains and the Context to pass query values between pages.

If I disable the EnableViewState Mac in my web.config, I am no longer
running into this problem. What is interesting is that I had the same
application running on another Windows 2003 machine about 4 months ago
and it did not error out like this. The only difference between the
current one and the old one is that the current one is HyperThreaded.

The machine key solution might work for Web Farm scenarios but not
regular sites running on a shared production box at a web hosting
company.


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[P.J]

There are 3 possible solutions to this problem:

1st solution: Disable the application pool idle worker process shutdown
via IIS 6.0 console | <your_applicati on> properties

2nd: I think the code snippets provided by danpak6 persist the
viewstate so it stays available on subsequent hit

3rd: In the machine.config file of your server, in the system.web
section, change the validationKey setting from the default (which is
Autogenerate) to a permanent key you generated (see above post to make
the tool that will generate one for you).

I think that sums it all.

[Huzaifa Tapal]

Of the three solutions you suggested, none of them work.

1st solution: Disable the application pool idle worker process shutdown
via IIS 6.0 console | <your_applicati on> properties

-- Did that under the Performance tab, recycled the application pool,
still the error persists.

2nd: I think the code snippets provided by danpak6 persist the viewstate
so it stays available on subsequent hit

-- Although this was not giving any error, the application was behaving
oddly. It would keep logging me out when it usually three the Invalid
ViewState error otherwise. Then accessing a secured area, I would
automagically be logged in again.

3rd: In the machine.config file of your server, in the system.web
section, change the validationKey setting from the default (which is
Autogenerate) to a permanent key you generated (see above post to make
the tool that will generate one for you).

-- This is the solution, in my previous reply I mentioned does not work
(possibly in a non-web farm environment).

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[Alvin Bruney [Microsoft MVP]]

>Did that under the Performance tab, recycled the >application pool,still

the error persists. You should manipulate the settings so that the application does not recycle.
This is not what you have said.
--
Regards
Alvin Bruney
[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
available at www.lulu.com/owc
--------------------------------------------------
"Huzaifa Tapal" <hu***********@ aidenblerb.com> wrote in message
news:O0******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP14.phx.gbl... Of the three solutions you suggested, none of them work.

1st solution: Disable the application pool idle worker process shutdown
via IIS 6.0 console | <your_applicati on> properties

-- Did that under the Performance tab, recycled the application pool,
still the error persists.

2nd: I think the code snippets provided by danpak6 persist the viewstate
so it stays available on subsequent hit

-- Although this was not giving any error, the application was behaving
oddly. It would keep logging me out when it usually three the Invalid
ViewState error otherwise. Then accessing a secured area, I would
automagically be logged in again.

3rd: In the machine.config file of your server, in the system.web
section, change the validationKey setting from the default (which is
Autogenerate) to a permanent key you generated (see above post to make
the tool that will generate one for you).

-- This is the solution, in my previous reply I mentioned does not work
(possibly in a non-web farm environment).

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[P.J]

In the Performance tab, uncheck the "Idle timeout" checkbox. By
default it is at 20 minutes, but unchecking it will leave it in memory
and no shutdown (recycling) will happen again. Then, the the Recyling
tab, uncheck any 'recycling' option that are set.

Note: if you are connected to your site, make changes to the
application pool setting, and then continue to browser, you might have
the error since the worker process did recycle when you applied the
settings to the pool. But from a fresh new session, you shouldn't
received the error.

Hope that will you better!
P.J

[danpak6]

Hi Huzaifa Tapal,

The unofficial solution is to set the enableViewState Mac property to
True on the page you'll be transferring to, then set it back to False.
This records that you want a definitive False value for this property
and resolves the bug.

Best,

Daniel

[Huzaifa Tapal]

Well turning off the recycling options and the idle timeout still did
not work. The wierd thing is that this only happens after doing
Server.Transfer and after Forms Authentication.

Turning the EnableViewState Mac to false fixes the problem, however,
since that is not reccommended I want to find a better solution to this.

I am surprised Microsoft is not doing anything about this. I believe
this is a huge bug in ASP.NET

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