PRB: Changes to .asp Files are Not Seen When Page is Previewed

ID: Q165952

The information in this article applies to:

SYMPTOMS

Changes are made to .asp files and saved via Visual InterDev (VID), but when previewed with a browser the changes are not seen.

This issue applies to developers making changes to the Global.asa and other .asp files.


CAUSE

Changing and then saving the Global.asa causes Active Server Pages (ASP) to miss any changes made to other .asp files afterward. This is an architecture problem of Active Server Pages 1.0.


RESOLUTION

There are a couple of workarounds. The guaranteed way is to stop and re- start the Web server through the Internet Information Server (IIS) manager. Another way that should work for most cases is to preview one of the .asp files in a browser, then to make trivial changes to all of the affected files and save them again. Note that you could reproduce the same problem if you save the Global.asa again.


STATUS

This problem has been resolved in Visual InterDev 6.0.


MORE INFORMATION

This problem is caused by an architecture problem with Active Server Pages 1.0. For performance reasons, ASP caches a copy of each Web site's .asp files. To allow VID and FrontPage to properly update and save files, ASP monitors the file structure of the Web site, typically stored under "\InetPub\wwwroot," and updates its cached versions when any changes are made. If someone changes the Global.asa, however, then this mechanism does not work again until the Global.asa has been executed, which is done whenever one of the .asp files is viewed.

Any changes made to .asp files between the saving of the Global.asa and its execution simply does not show up, and IIS executes and runs the contents of the old .asp file. Stopping and re-starting the Web server through the IIS manager causes ASP to reload the files and pick up any changes. Also, executing the Global.asa re-starts the notification mechanism so that if the files are saved again, they are properly updated in the ASP cache.

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

  1. Make changes and save the Global.asa.


  2. Make changes to an .asp file and save.


  3. Preview the .asp file in the browser, the changes made in step 2 do not appear.



REFERENCES

For the latest Knowledge Base articles and other support information on Visual InterDev and Active Server Pages, see the following page on the Microsoft Technical Support site:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/vinterdev/

Additional query words: 


Keywords          : kbASP kbExtension kbFrontPage kbServer kbVisID100 kbVisID600fix kbGrpASP 
Version           : WINDOWS:1.0
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: July 13, 1999