sitecore shell suddenly returning 404

Question

suddenly my sitecore development instance is returning 404 when i go to sitecore -> content editor (or any other application in the sitecore desktop UI). my sites configuration is like this:

<sites>
      <site name="shell" virtualFolder="/sitecore/shell" physicalFolder="/sitecore/shell" rootPath="/sitecore/content" startItem="/home" language="en" database="core" domain="sitecore" loginPage="/sitecore/login" content="master" contentStartItem="/Home" enableWorkflow="true" enableAnalytics="false" xmlControlPage="/sitecore/shell/default.aspx" browserTitle="Sitecore" htmlCacheSize="2MB" registryCacheSize="3MB" viewStateCacheSize="200KB" xslCacheSize="5MB" />
      <site name="login" virtualFolder="/sitecore/login" physicalFolder="/sitecore/login" enableAnalytics="false" database="core" domain="sitecore" />
      <site name="admin" virtualFolder="/sitecore/admin" physicalFolder="/sitecore/admin" enableAnalytics="false" enableWorkflow="true" domain="sitecore" loginPage="/sitecore/admin/login.aspx" />
      <site name="service" virtualFolder="/sitecore/service" physicalFolder="/sitecore/service" />
      <site name="modules_shell" virtualFolder="/sitecore modules/shell" physicalFolder="/sitecore modules/shell" rootPath="/sitecore/content" startItem="/home" language="en" database="core" domain="sitecore" content="master" enableAnalytics="false" enableWorkflow="true" />
      <site name="modules_website" virtualFolder="/sitecore modules/web" physicalFolder="/sitecore modules/web" rootPath="/sitecore/content" startItem="/home" language="en" database="web" domain="extranet" allowDebug="true" cacheHtml="true" />
 ....my custom sites
</sites>

any idea what might have caused this and how to fix it? i'm working with sitecore 6.5

EDIT

on the log, i see the following error:

Nested Exception

Exception: System.InvalidOperationException
Message: 'analytics' connection string is not defined
Source: Sitecore.Kernel
   at Sitecore.Diagnostics.Assert.IsNotNull(Object value, String message)
   at Sitecore.Diagnostics.Assert.ResultNotNull[T](T result, String message)
   at Sitecore.Analytics.Data.DataAccess.DataAdapters.DataAdapterManager.ConnectionStrings.get_AnalyticsSettings()
   at Sitecore.Analytics.Data.DataAccess.DataAdapters.DataAdapterManager.ConnectionStrings.get_Analytics()
   at Sitecore.Analytics.Data.DataAccess.DataAdapters.Sql.SqlServer.SqlServerDataAdapterProvider..ctor()

However i have the following on sitecore.analytics.config:

<setting name="Analytics.DisableDatabase" value="true" />
...
<setting name="Analytics.Enabled" value="false" />

I would say it's not enough info to troubleshoot... Is there anything in Sitecore log file? — Yan Sklyarenko
404 is not a .NET error, If you don't see a YSOD (yellow screen of death) then check IIS. — Davin Tryon
funny thing.. with chrome i don't get the error, only on IE 8 (i don't have ie 9) — lurscher
@YanSklyarenko i cleared browser history on IE 8 and didn't help. What seems to do the trick was logging off and on again in sitecore 0.O — lurscher

Paul George Paul George · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-14T10:32:40

In the absence of any answers, I'll offer a stab in the dark...

Analytics was originally enabled, an error was thrown which redirected to a non-existent error page - 404. Disabling analytics fixed the error, but the redirect was being persisted in IE via session data or due to file-based viewstate (which I believe survives an app recycle) which continued to redirect the browser for that session. You mentioned 'clearing browser history' but thats not the same as clearing cookies and the session, hence chrome in a new session was OK but IE was still acting on the old session related redirect data.

If the error page (which couldn't be found) also cleared the redirect 'action', this might explain the persistent behaviour.

Just a guess!

sitecore shell suddenly returning 404

2 Answers