Server Error in ‘/’ Application.
Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server.[...]

We hadn’t recently patched, or performed any updates except for increasing the max allowed upload file size and timeouts (a client needed to upload LARGE files). The server application logs revealed something slightly more useful:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: ASP.NET 2.0.50727.0
Event Category: Web Event
Event ID: 1310
Date: 5/6/2010
Time: 4:50:11 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ServerName
Description:
Event code: 3006
Event message: A parser error has occurred.
Event time: 5/6/2010 4:50:11 PM
Event time (UTC): 5/6/2010 8:50:11 PM
Event ID: 57cbaa6a1f804cb2aefe80de4ceec102
Event sequence: 5
Event occurrence: 1
Event detail code: 0

Application information:
Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/1965610693/Root-1-129176526056583668
Trust level: WSS_Minimal
Application Virtual Path: /
Application Path: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\foldername443\
Machine name: ServerName

Process information:
Process ID: 1944
Process name: w3wp.exe
Account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE

Exception information:
Exception type: HttpParseException
Exception message: Could not load file or assembly ‘System?Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. (C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\foldername443\web.config line 106)

Now, the web.config wasn’t manually edited by anyone, but the modified date matched the date & time when this problem started as well as the beginning of these ASP.NET errors. All the evidence seemed to point to what I can only assume was caused by a hiccup when the settings were being saved from IIS – that corrupted the web.config.

I found 4 or 5 randomly placed “?” in the web.config. I couldn’t just remove the question marks because they appeared to have replaced characters in the file instead of being inserted. I didn’t have a backup, but we did have multiple AAMs for this portal and I was able to look at another web.config. This gave me a better idea of what characters should have been in the file wherever I wasn’t able to make a good educated guess.

The latest oddity that I’ve run into is with the CalendarExtender. It’s supposed to look like this:

However, at some point it started looking like this:


Apparently some people aren’t so lucky as to have the calendar cells cutoff mid-cell. That behavior was my first clue. Also, this strange display was only happening in the GridViews. This is not something programmatic with the CalendarExtender settings – it’s caused by the CSS. At some point I had set padding and margin on the tables and cells to make the content more readable which cascaded down to the calendar.

This issue is discussed a bit here, and the solutions may work for you. They didn’t quite work for me.

A cleaner summary of the issue and a simple solution can be found here as well.

If neither of those quite do the trick, this is the full description of everything you should need to know about the CSS for the CalendarExtender.

Happy Hunting!

SharePoint requires the ASP.NET v2.0 to be registered in the IIS Web Service Extensions and set to “Allowed.” If this is not the case, the SharePoint installation will error out – simple as that. It seems pretty common to find .NET 2.0 installed but not displaying in IIS. I’ve found the solution a number of times over across the ‘net (quick and easy!) but not the answer to “why did this happen on this server but not the other?”

I haven’t narrowed it down to the exact particulars of the situation that causes it. I have noticed though that if you decide to be proactive during your server build (in my case Windows Server 2003) and allow Windows/Microsoft Update to install the .NET framework before you add the IIS/App server role, you’ll run into this.

I haven’t had a chance to do thorough enough testing to be sure if it’s the Windows/Microsoft Update method of installation that causes this (probably not), or if it’s installing it before adding it as an IIS Application server (most likely), or the combination of the two. Too avoid having to fix the issue, I’ve just started patching/updating the server, adding the server role, then manually installing the redistributable installation for the .NET framework. If you use this method, ASP.NET v2.0 automatically registers itself as an IIS Web Server Extension and you’re ready for the SharePoint installation. Otherwise, you’ll need to manually register it using this command:

%SYSTEMROOT%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis -i

More details on the aspnet_regiis command here.

After that, you can navigate to: Start > All Programs > Administrative Tools > IIS Manager

Expand the server name if needed, and select the “Web Service Extensions” note.  You should now see ASP.NET v.2x and have the ability to select it and click “Allow”.