Application Pool issue

[markrawlingson]

Hey guys,

Having a bit of a complicated issue here so please bare with me while I explain. I'm also not a system admin and don't know a whole lot about IIS, so i apologize in advance.

I discovered this morning an inconsitency within the application pools of our website. Basically, we have a maze of cluttered folders and other gargabe within the website - with one main folder, called /secured/ running from the root of the website, which handles all the applications within the website.

I noticed this morning that the /secured folder may have a different application pool than the root of the website.

I've got a couple files running from folders in the root (/platform & /css) which handle platform level session and application information (ASP). This information MUST be carried over to the pages within the /secured folder - in fact i need to be able to access this session information everywhere within the site, not just specific files in specific folders (kind of defeats the purpose..) - but it doesn't. In fact, the session information within the root folder(s) and the /secured folder seem to be completely different.

I wrote a value to a session variable within the /secured folder and then visited a page within one of the root subsidiary folders (/platform) and the value did not carry over. It's a session variable so it should. I wrote a value of "1" to it, and it showed up in the file within /platform as "0" (because I had previously set it's value to "0" in this file, but later removed the code as it wasn't working.)

I've taken a look, with my limited knowledge, at IIS and the /secured folder has kind of a gear looking icon over it (which I'm assuming means it's a member of an application pool), but the folders /css and /platform do not have this icon over them. When I go to properties in the /secured folder it shows me the application pool name, and I have the ability to change which application pool it belongs to. The /css & /platform folders have the same application pool name but the drop down is greyed out and I am unable to change which app pool it belongs to, which makes me think it's not part of one. When I expand the application pool in question, I see that the folder /secured is a member, among many others which i also believe to be subfolders rather than whole websites. The website name itself is NOT listed in this list, nor are the /css and /platform folders - so i'm pretty sure they're not in the same application pool as the /secured folder which means that if i set a session variable called Session("whatever") it will have different values within the different folders.

As I stated above I don't have the greatest knowledge of IIS, so i could be WAY off base here - but if this makes sense to any of you IIS experts, I guess the real question would be: How do i get the /css and /platform folders to become members of the same application pool? Or better yet, remove the /secured folder from the app pool and add the whole website.

Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!
Sincerely,
Mark

[markrawlingson]

Update:

I was wrong, they are in the same application pool, there seems to be a massive list of virtual directories which are all subfolders of the root web app in there though, rather than just the app pool servicing just the web app itself. Just to be sure i even added the two sub folders (/platform & /css) as virtual directories just like everything else is in the app pool, and getting the same problem.

I wrote out the SessionID on a page within /secured folder and got 277855185 - then i wrote out the SessionID on a page in /platform and got 277855186

So there is DEFINITELY something screwy going on with the session infrastructure.

Anyone have any idea what the problem could be?

I should also add that this application was developed years ago before I came along and the lead web developer on the project developed it with FrontPage, and thus there is a ton of frontpage junk interfering.. it's even in the Session_OnStart() of the global.asa (i removed it though, thinking it could be interfering with the session information..same deal)

Sincerely,
Mark

[kenobewan]

This isn't very helpful, but in a situation like this where I don't know the cause I usually take a couple of steps. Backup the original version. Switch off all error handling to see if I get useful error. Use any debugging tools available. Systematically comment out code or exclude files until I have a working version and then work forward.

You may also need to learn more about application pools:
IIS and ASP.NET: The Application Pool

[markrawlingson]

Thanks Kenobewan,

That's always my methodology too. Sometimes I have to completely rip something apart and take it right back to basics to figure out the problem. In this case, the company doesn't have a test server so they do all development live while people are using the product.. so I have to be fairly careful while ripping apart things within the actual server itself.

In this case, I was able to fix the problem. Took me 7 bleeping hours, but I fixed it.

Some genius created about 30 virtual directories within the web site itself. All of them are subfolders serving the master application. So you had basically an application pool listing like this..

domain.com
/folder
/folder
/folder
/folder
/folder
/folder/folder/folder
/folder/folder
etc..

Each one of the virtual directories seems to have had its own session state unique to itself. So as I tried to retrieve information from a session variable which was set on one section of the site, I was essentially trying to retrieve information that was set by a completely different session state. In fact there were about 30 different session states, within the one website. Wow, right? Yeah, I know.. that was my reaction too.

Anyway, I killed the virtual directories because they didn't need to be there in the first place, and voila!

Thanks for your time by the way!

Sincerely,
Mark

[kenobewan]

Ouch! Beg, steal or borrow a test server, they are worth their weight in gold. Just make sure that it has the same platform as the production. Glad you solved the problem :).

[markrawlingson]

hahaha, yeah 'Ouch' is right. It's a major annoyance, and dangerous too. I told them over a year ago we need one, but they haven't listened so far - despite a few minor catasrophes which have occurred as a result. They've done a lot of things in a unorthadox Manner. However, I'm slowly sorting through the mess and bringing them up to par with how we do things these days. Which is one reason why solving this particular issue was a major breakthrough. For the amount of $$$ they're paying for their production server, there should be a test server thrown in for free - lol.

Sincerely,
Mark