File not found error for custom SharePoint 2010 pages in _Layouts

Question

I've created multiple custom application pages using VS 2010 and have deployed them to my SharePoint site.

I'm running into an issue when trying to reference these pages by a URL...

If I use http://myserver/sites/mysite/_layouts/MyApp/MyPage.aspx everything works perfectly, and I can view my pages.

If I use http://myserver/_layouts/MyApp/MyPage.aspx I get a HTTP 404 Not Found error.

Is there a way I can navigate to my custom page by URL without a specific site reference? Everything I've looked at says that I should be able to access this page directly from /_layouts but it doesn't seem to work.

Note: If I look at the folder "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\MyApp" on my server, I see all the aspx pages...

Answer 1

Have you tried another browser? I only have this problem using Firefox, Internet Explorer works perfect. Tried this?

Answer 2

Since the page works on one Site Collection but not the other, it seems to indicate a feature scope issue. However, I'm not sure how this would interfere with pages under _layouts.

Is your application page associated with a Site Collection level (or lower) scoped feature?

If so, is that feature activated on the root Site Collection (http://myserver in your example)? Activating the feature or expanding its scope may well resolve the problem.