App Goes Straight to Offline After 8.2 -> 9.0 Upgrade

kentico guy asked on November 4, 2021 02:33

I'm upgrading a highly customized instance of Kentico 8.2 to Kentico 9.0. I've got all the API diffs resolved but when the app runs now (even with no database) it goes straight to offline. I'm running locally (localhost). It's not the database. I've tried linking it up with the db too and it still goes straight to offline. I don't see any errors in the output window in Visual Studio.

Anyone got any ideas why the app would default to offline? I got a message in the upgrade that the web.config file was not able to be modified because of a JSON ref issue

CMS\web.config was modified by a user and needs to be handled manually.
Message: Unable to update xml element. Element on '/configuration/runtime/ns1:assemblyBinding/ns1:probing[@privatePath = "CMSDependencies\Newtonsoft.Json.4.5.0.0"]' was not found.
Stack Trace: 
at InstallationHelper.WebConfigManager.UpdateConfig(String transformationFilePath)
at Hotfix.HotfixInstaller.UpgradeWebConfig(String updatePackagePath, String webProjectPath, BackgroundWorker worker)

could something in an unmodified web.config after the upgrade cause the app to go straight offline? or what else would cause this?

Thanks, in advance

kentico 9 offline update upgrade kentico 8.2 to 9

Correct Answer

kentico guy answered on November 4, 2021 20:15

This was such an easy fix... I totally forgot that all I needed to do was delete the app_offline.htm file from the CMS directory and restart the app. DOH! I messed around with this for a few hours then remembered I had this issue once before.

Thanks for the suggestions anyway!

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Recent Answers

Brenden Kehren answered on November 4, 2021 02:59

The config file must have been highly modified and tried to incorporate some updates from the upgrade. I can tell you I've dealt with those Newtonsoft issues on almost every pre-version 10 site upgrade. The easiest thing to do is install a base v9 instance and compare your project file and web.config file. Then go through and make modifications to that Newtonsoft reference in the project and in the config file.

It's honestly a big pain in the backside but messing around with the references enough will "correct" what the upgrade did.

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Juraj Ondrus answered on November 4, 2021 06:19

Or, another cause could be that you have multiple .sln files in the project folder. Or, the GUIDs of the projects in the .sln file do not match the defaults. For example, default Kentico 8.2 web site project type should have these values in the .sln file:

Project("{E24C65DC-7377-472B-9ABA-BC803B73C61A}") = "CMS", "CMS\", "{420F4FED-2F28-4BE5-8CEA-9A6B9A57558B}"

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