Issue after exporting/importing site to a new instance

Yang Wen asked on April 22, 2015 01:26

The Web-App site was built in my localhost Kentico instance. I used the export feature in the Sites app to export the site. I used the "Pre select all objects" option to export.

Import of the site into the new instance went smoothly. I did get the message to rebuild the solution in the destination instance. I did not rebuild because VS Studio is not installed on the destination instance. Instead, I copied over CMSApp.dll and CMSAppAppCode.dll, both of which were built in my localhost instance due to customized Layout web parts and custom Transformation method.

The site renders fine in the destination instance, including the features in the customized assemblies. However problems arise when trying to edit the site in the Pages app.

The root-level page does not show the "master page" tab. The Page template used does have "Master Page" enabled. Template type is also set to "Portal Page"
In the Design Tab of any page, the web part controls do not appear. It shows the rendered web part contents instead. Toggling the "Web part content" checkbox has no effect in the Design tab.
The web parts toolbox on the right-side does not appear in the Design view.

What could be causing this error? The fact that when viewing the site outside of the Portal UI, everything works fine. I'm really confused here. Thanks for reading this long post!

Recent Answers

Charles Matvchuk answered on April 22, 2015 02:56

Are you using Web Site or Web App ?

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Yang Wen answered on April 22, 2015 03:49

Web app. Newly compiled output assemblies were copied to the new instance's bin folder.

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Yang Wen answered on April 22, 2015 18:08 (last edited on April 22, 2015 18:13)

So I just discovered the debug feature in Kentico. My coworker was able to figure out the root cause of the missing Master Page tab. It was due to an error passing a GUID to a macro. This is apparently a common issue while exportin/import. The fix was to run update signature utility.

The inability to edit web parts in the Design tab is still an open issue.

In the debug log, I captured the logs for the simple action of "Clicking on the Design Tab".

The goal is to see what payload gets returned by Kentico, and all the logic that gets executed behind the scene. I compared the destination instance to my localhost (where design tab is working correctly).

Under the Page Output section of Debug:

In localhost, a request to /getdoc is made which returns the proper Design tab page, including the ability to edit web parts
In my destination instance, the /getdoc request does not get made. This seems to be key to the problem. I'm not sure what controls are in place to generate the request to getdoc when clicking on the design tab.

In the "All" section of Debug, the execution steps and result of each step look equivalent between the two instances.. No obvious sign of difference in behavior. Argghh

Any ideas?

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Yang Wen answered on April 22, 2015 21:12

Another update. The Design view in the livesite mode shows the web part controls. What does this tell me with respect to the issue with the Design tab in CMS mode?

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