Problem setting up DEV site

[Brewhaus]

I know that I am going to be embarrassed at the end of this, but I am having a problem setting up a DEV site for our second website (dev.hotsaucedepot.com). When I set the site up it keeps forwarding to www.brewhaus.com. It must be a file within the DEV folder, as we copied the live Brewhaus folder to be the start for our R8 DEV site (we made many file changes to make the site design responsive, so we wanted to maintain those files). I removed the license file, so I expected that a key would be requested when I went to dev.hotsaucedepot.com, but instead it just goes to the Brewhaus site. Can anyone help on this?

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hi,

Sounds more like a re-direct issue. An incorrect license key would be the most likely issue, but I sounds like you've already removed that. But perhaps you have an IIS redirect setup or something in your default.aspx?

[Brewhaus]

What is odd is that if I point the IIS site to the live hot sauce site it will go to the correct page. The same goes if I point it to our family website. It is only when I point it to the DEV folder that we have this issue.

The DEV folder is just a copy of our LIVE Brewhaus folder, with the Commerbuilder.lic file removed. Any thoughts?

[jmestep]

Did you change the store url in the database?

[Katie]

You might try putting the Commercebuilder.lic file back in place. Then you should get an error (assuming the path to the dev store is different). If you don't get an error, then something else is wrong. I would suspect a setting in IIS. Does the dev site have it's own IP address? Or is it sharing the IP of the production site?

[Brewhaus]

With the license file in place it also forwards to the live site. The DEV is on a different IP address.

I am going to use our Brewhaus DEV, change the DB from the back end (to the Hot Sauce DEV db), and copy that database file to the Hot Sauce DEV site. Maybe that will get us pointing to the correct database and (hopefully) solve the problem. Failing that I will try installing a fresh R8 site from the download, then once it is working I will over-write all but the license and database files.

[Katie]

Is the physical path to your DEV site the SAME as the production site? If not, then you should have gotten a key error because the keys are tied to a physical location and cannot be moved. This is simply a test to see if the dev site is truly pointed to the correct location.

[Brewhaus]

The DEV and LIVE sites are different physical paths. Is it possible that the database file is pointing to the DB of the live site, and this is causing it to forward to the live site?

[Katie]

The DEV and LIVE sites are different physical paths.

You should have received a key error.

Is it possible that the database file is pointing to the DB of the live site, and this is causing it to forward to the live site?

I'm not sure if this would make any difference except that you would have your dev install using your production data. But you should check to make sure.

[Brewhaus]

I will try a fresh R8 install tonight, and then if it is working I will over-write all files excluding the license key and DB. That may be the simplest.

[Brewhaus]

Because I have only the R8 Upgrade files I must use the same base files as our R6 site. I copied our R6 folder and renamed it Hot Sauce Depot-DEV, then removed the Commercebuilder.lic file. When I point the DEV site in IIS to this new folder is just opens up our existing LIVE Hot Sauce Depot site.

I then created a fresh backup of our Brewhaus LIVE site and renamed the folder Hot Sauce Depot-DEV2. Again, I removed the license file. When I point IIS to this folder and try to go to dev.hotsaucedepot.com I end up opening the live Brewhaus site.

Any thoughts?

[Katie]

If you are copying over all the files, then you are also using the database.config file from the site being copied. Try ignoring the AbleCommerce files, and put in a static html or image file that you can access directly. This test will ensure that your IIS is setup properly. If this works, then you'll either need to decrypt the database.config file or install with full build (which I recommend). You should have access to those files if you login to your account and view the Downloads tab.

[Brewhaus]

The DB that we are using is a copy of the LIVE db. This is the same method that we used when we set up the DEV site for Brewhaus. We made a direct copy of the LIVE db (renaming it BrewhausDEV), copied the working R6 folder, copied the R8 upgrade files into the folder, and after removing the license file everything worked fine (we had a problem with dev.brewhaus forwarding us automatically to www.brewhaus, but you had me remove the license file and the next time we hit the dev.brewhaus page it said that our license key was invalid, and had us enter the DEV license key). Maybe in all the work with the website changes I forgot something, but I am pretty sure that was all that we did.

I did the same with the Hot Sauce site, and have checked the IIS and DNS settings, and they mimic the Brewhaus settings. I took the extra step of changing the DB that we point to in the database.config file (as a last ditch effort this morning I pointed our HSD site to the db copy, copied all of the files to a new folder, then changed the LIVE site back so that it pointed to the correct db again). It did not resolve anything.

Is there something within one of the db tables that I can change manually? I can do a fresh install with the full build, but I was hoping to start with all of our customized files as opposed to having to copy everything back over. I guess that I am frustrated as I followed basically the same procedure as I did a couple of weeks ago for the Brewhaus site, and got that working with minimal problems.

[Katie]

I just did this last Friday and had no problem. You just have to make sure the key is for the dev site, and that the database.config file is using the dev db. That's it. Within the database, we do have the store domain, but that is only used to generate the proper links for email. There is also the path for the sitemap which would need to be changed, but certainly not the problem here. Really, the license key is the only thing that determines which domain the application can respond from.

So...I decided to check your license key. We issued one for dev.hotsaucedepot.com, but it has never been installed yet. Make sure you are not using the wrong key

[Brewhaus]

I removed the Commercebuilder.lic from the App_Data folder for the DEV site. When I hit the DEV site it should then say that the license key is missing or invalid, shouldn't it? Then I can enter the correct key and all should be well? Instead it just redirects to Brewhaus (if I use a backup of the Brewhaus folder and remove the license file) or Hot Sauce Depot (if I use a backup of the HSD folder and remove the license file). I am just lost as to why it is directing to the live sites after Commercebuilder.lic has been removed.

[Katie]

Can you remove the key now? This is for the dev.hotsaucedepot.com...

[Brewhaus]

The Commercebuilder.lic has been removed from the App_Data folder.

[Katie]

Nothing changed and it should have - the install cannot be used without a key.

So, I bypassed AbleCommerce licensing and tried to load an image using this URL -

http://dev.hotsaucedepot.com/app_themes ... s/logo.gif

It redirects to the www. version.

Earlier, I asked you to put in a test.htm file or some image that doesn't exist in the production folder, and then try to access it. Did you ever test it? Because, I bet you will get a 404 not found which would confirm that you still have something wrong with your IIS setting or DNS. You can also try using the IP address to see if this is a DNS issue. But you'll need to get a new dev key bound to the IP....

[Brewhaus]

You are correct- when I point to a file not in the live folder, but is in the DEV folder, I get a 404 error. Here is where I get messed up though:

Point IIS to ../R8 sites/Hot Sauce Depot- DEV (this is a backup of the live HSD site with the license file removed), the 404 error shows ../R6 sites/Hot Sauce Depot/bhinvoice.jpg does not exist

Point IIS to ..R8 sites/Hot Sauce Depot- DEV2 (this is a backup of the live Brewhaus site with the license file removed), the 404 error shos ../R8 sites/Brewhaus/bhinivoice.jpg does not exist

So, somewhere in those two DEV folders there is something still pointing back to the live sites, and it appears that it is not the license file, as it has been removed. Thoughts?

[Katie]

Who manages your DNS? I don't think this is related to the folder or any files. I think this is related to the domain name. Do you have the dev site running on it's own IP address? You can bypass the DNS and access the site directly by IP if you do. Just remember you'll need to get a new key.

[Brewhaus]

We manage DNS, as well. The DEV site is on a different IP address than either of the live sites (DEV- .98, Brewhaus (live)- .99, Hot Sauce Depot (live)- .101). That is part of what makes this so odd. If I change only the folder being used in IIS 'Basic Settings' for the website (-DEV or -DEV2), it changes where you end up- Brewhaus.com or hotsaucedepot.com.

[Brewhaus]

With a full install it works, so I will just make a backup of the working folder before I start to copy the folders from the modified version across.