VSeWSS Error: No SharePoint Site Exists at the Specified URL

If you are developing a SharePoint based solution that involves developing custom web parts, then you have probably found VSeWSS, which greatly simplifies the deployment of web parts. But there's not much documentation on how to manage it within a complex configuration - and there are many conditions which can cause an error on deployment - something akin to:

Error 1 VSeWSS Service Error: No SharePoint Site exists at the specified URL: http:///. The Web application at http:/// could not be found. Verify that you have typed the URL correctly. If the URL should be serving existing content, the system administrator may need to add a new request URL mapping to the intended application.

Log file written to: C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\VSeWSS 1.3\VSeWSS1.3 service.log 0 0

This error can show up with or without the URL displayed. In either case the errors in the log show the URL attempted.

Spoiler: On a single server installation, the Default Public URL must be the Server Name. If you server is named Dashboard, then your Default Public URL must be http://dashboard/
Changing the Default Public URL will break VSeWSS deployment

There are a lot of posts around the internet to try to address this issue, and in most cases, not all situations are resolved. There are a lot of configurations that can cause this error, and so it was a configuration issue in my case.

My installation consists of 64 bit versions of Windows 2008 R2 with SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 with VSeWSS 1.3 for 64bit installed on a single VM server. SharePoint is the only site on the machine and is using the default port and URL. i did modify the setup to use the SQL Server for the config database instead of the windows internal database. App Pools are setup properly using a domain account that has full permissions both in IIS and SQL Server. The account has also been added to every group and administrator list available in SharePoint Administration, and has been added to all WPG groups in windows, but the problem persists.
I then began experimenting with Alternate Access mappings, per suggestions returned by google searches on this subject. What I found was most interesting - When I added host header bindings in IIS Manager it broke the site, but when I added alternate access mappings through Central Administration those mappings worked. Several reboots and frustrating days later I returned to my site bindings, and there were the alternate access mappings I had made previously!

At this point I began to get suspicious - those bindings did not appear when I first added the mappings, so something under the hood must have found and generated them based on the mappings I added. So I did some research on Alternate Access Mappings and found this little note:

Host-named site collections cannot use alternate access mappings. Host-named site collections are automatically considered to be in the Default zone, and the URL of the request must not be modified between the end user and the server.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288609%28office.12%29.aspx

I then revisited my Alternate Access Mappings and found that the Default Public URL of my server was not the server name - my servername is dashboard, in the domain mysite.org, but my Default Public URL is dashboard.mysite.org

Once I removed all Alternate Access Mappings and changed the Default Public URL to http://dashboard, VSeWSS deploy was successful!

I then added http://dashboard.mysite.org as the Internet Public URL - leaving the Default Public URL http://Dashboard and my site was once again available via multiple URLs, without breaking VSeWSS deployment. When you add a Public URL, Central Admin automatically adds the appropriate Internal URL for the modified Zone Public URL.







The lack of IIS7 documentation in regards to SharePoint is disappointing - IIS 7 is significantly different under the hood (eg no metabase file) than IIS 6 so the references are not relevant - new documentation is needed!

Can't hear myself

Well working in an office is quite different from workibg at home isn't it?

It's surprising how big a difference there is in regards to listening to music. Just switching from speakers to headphones is tough.
Then there's the surrounding noise of people talking and doing whatever they consider work and it's amazing I get anything done. I'm really quite amazing, but aren't we all? Anyway , I can admit that I'm spoiled or a pansy but I'm at my most effective in a particular condition. So starts an attempt to improve my condition to improve productivity.
For obvious reasons let's start with music.
Noise cancelling technology seems promising so we'll test it out.
I am starting with a set of Phillips headphones and will post results soon.

-- Post From My iPhone

Initial reaction wow! Most noticeable is mo hvac rumble. People are clearer though, until you crank the tunes.
It's nice :)

That was march 5. Today is the tenth and I left the Phillips headphones at home. So today I will get to live without. 5 minutes and I miss them.

And so it goes

I finally land a contract where my skills can be put to use only to find that even though they have the newest technology I have to produce vb.net code
Nevermind that my project includes a soa architecture the vb programmers here don't know how to make and I can... But my solution is in c#...
so now I get to add more to my resume...code conversion and vb.net!
There's always a silver lining right? Maybe they'll see my clean c code and change their minds. Oh wait their vb programmers...if they had the capacity to change they wouldn't still be coding in vb would they?

What are your thoughts on language preferences in the workplace?
Did I just start a war or are there other reasons people should be open to either?



-- Post From My iPhone

Why not run?

If you commute between Columbia and jeff city then you know that the new discovery overpass on 63 is a speed trap

They named it because Boone county sheriff discovered a new revenue?

So if you see those cherries light up, they expect you to exit, and are waiting for you when you do. If you run there a cop on the other side of AC sometimes 2. But no cop is gonna risk a major crash on such a busy road. So why not run? You've got a good chance if you get get around a cluster of cars without leaving the fuzz a path. by stadium you are free Since they don't post anyone thee you just need to get ahead of a cluster at that exit and take an offramp farther north.
Maybe broadway or vandiver. If you did it right you can slow down and blend in with traffic. Once they lose sight of you it's over.

My point is that the sheriff is only gonna catch people that want a ticket since there's too much traffic for them to risk a high speed chase for very long.
Good luck fellow commuters, I'll be watchin

Valentines eve

Out with some friends and my wife we ate before going to see slum dog millionaire as we won't be hungry after...





-- Post From My iPhone

Blogpress works

Yep and there's witnesses


-- Post From My iPhone

Do you love the iPhone

Forget what those winMo folks say. You can live on the cloud with the iPhone and get real work done. So what I can't make office docs in my hand... But as a veteran treo 700wx user I can confidently claim that office integration was not really that useful.big memory hog though... Let's face it, us road warriors don't need or want to draft documents with our thumbs or work on spreadsheets 200 pixels at a time. What is important though? OTA synchronization, which has been dominated by exchange. So really it's not the phone you need, it's an exchange account. What smartphone doesn't support exchange? And thanks to nuevasync, and now google sync, that exchange sync function is available to non-exchange systems. Ymmv, but if your like me and in love with Gmail and the idea of having access to everything online - my own personal cloud- then syncing up your web enabled phone is the last piece to living a winmo-free mobile life.
Even this blog is updated from my iPhone