I'm new to ASP.net but not to C#, .net or Web Development.
In PHP it was nice to be able to go right to the browser and refresh whenever I made a change. Using ASP.net with VS08 however seems a bit awkward.
Should I launch a development server and keep it open, refreshing the browser when I make a change or should I close the development server between editing code?
Sorry if this sounds silly but I'm just not sure what the "accepted" practice is here.
When developing with Cassini, I always just let it run as it saves the startup time whenever I want to debug. It doesn't hurt to do so, it'll always reflect the current built DLLs and works pretty well.
You have two options when going from Visual Studio to the browser. The first is to debug the application by pressing F5 and running it. The second is to choose the "View In Browser" command (or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+W). The latter doesn't attach debuggers to the web server which makes it much faster than debugging but doesn't support things like code-behind break points or breaking into code upon unhandled asp.net excpetions.
For fastest development, minimize the number of times that your web server is started and how many times you attach the debugger to the web server.
I launch my dev server and then leave it running all the time. Instead of closing down the dev server, I detach the debugger, and when I need to step through code I attach it again. This gives me the best of both worlds: saves me the web server startup time AND runs pages fast most of the time.
Depends what stage of development I am in.
If I am adding lots of files (something that you can't do in Debug mode), changing lots of code in App_Code (which will reset the app) or adding lots of components from the toolbox, then I will tend to leave Debug off.
Once I start actively debugging a site, then I will leave it on as much as possible.
I use IIS even for development so there is no "launch" of the web server at all. That being said, I will typically alt-tab between code I'm working on and the browser window while I am fine-tuning HTML, Ajax calls, or the code behind. Bigger changes require a restart and you will receive a message that the code is no longer in synch with the web site (during an exception) when you must restart.
The bottom line: you can debug while running in an ASP.NET application and, as long as you can get away with it, it is an effective way of tuning your software.
Related
I have several projects in asp.net and in all of them I have the same problem. The first time I access an aspx page the load is very slow. Once I close the page and reopen it, the load is very fast. Why is the first load so slow? Can I change any settings in IIS?
Thanks
I have read a lot of documentation but I am not an expert in this and I have not gotten any progress.
By default, asp.net web pages and code files are compiled dynamically when users first request aspx page from a Web site. After pages and code files have been compiled the first time, the compiled resources are cached, so that subsequent requests to the same page are extremely efficient.
More information about asp.net dynamic compilation:
Understanding ASP.NET Dynamic Compilation.
How to: Precompile ASP.NET Web Sites for Deployment.
Ok, so several issues here.
You don't mention if you are talking about your developer computer - say hitting f5 to run the site.
next up, are you deploying a asp.net web site, or a asp.net web site application?
With a application then the compile of the code and pages occurs on YOUR computer, and the .dll's are built by Visual studio (VS). So, at deploy time, then there is a first-time delay, but it not all that long - maybe 5 seconds, and that's as app pool etc. spools up.
However, if you deploy a asp.net web site? Then unlike an "application", the source code (vb, or c#) pages for code behind are included, and deployed to the web site. And this means that IIS does the compile of pages - and often on the fly. This deployment model is often preferred by many, since you can open even the live files on the server, edit one line of code behind, hit save. On next page use, it will re-compile.
If you use an application, then as noted, IIS does not do the code compile, and in fact not even the source code is deployed during a publish. Of course, while there are many benefits to an "application", the ONE big downside is of course that you require a full site re-publish EVEN if you change just one line of code behind.
So, while an application has "some" delay for the first site use, it tends to be considerably less of a delay compared to when using/deploying a web site. (Since then, IIS has to compile the code, and in fact has to compile each page used).
You don't mention/note which deploy model and approach you are using here.
As noted, while the web site option is certainly less efforts to make a change to one page or a bit of code, I still far prefer the "application" approach, since things like "referencing" additional class library and code, and even being able to say use the Rosyln compiler (which may well not be on the server and available to IIS). As a result, I prefer and use an "application" despite the extra efforts required come publish time, but the benefits at developer time far outweigh the downsides.
And of course, one benefit of the "application" approach, is you do as a general rule get far faster web start up times.
I have a problem with an old application in asp.net.
This application runs on a server with windows server 2012 and is used by hundreds of people at the same time (same app but which is pointed to by different domains).
The problem is this: every time I modify an .asp file, the page takes a lot of time to "recompile" the code and this causes damage to the users who use it.
This problem does not occur with the exact same application but running on another dedicated server used only by one user.
I've been researching for days, the only noteworthy thing found is that, in the server iis, if I recycle on application pool -> select the application, it has exactly the same effect.
I don't know much about windows server so I ask you for help.
Thank you!
You have two types of deployment models.
First is what we call a asp.net web site,
and then second, is what we call a asp.net web site application.
They sound the same - but they are not.
So, while most perfer using a "application"? The ONE down side is that you have to re-publish the WHOLE site if you say change some code behind. This is good, and bad. The good part is that your code is re-compiled BEFORE you publish. (and in fact, you might even want to re-name "app_code", since that does re-compile by the web site.
However, for the most part a web applcation is "harder" to make a small update, since when you publish, you have to re-publish the whole site. But, the good part is that all code tends to be compiled down to ONE .dll. In effect the the site is pre-compiled before publishing. And with a applciaton, then you can add/change and do more things. In effect, the web site "applcation" allows you to do things like create say a custom logon provider. In most cases, this means the WHOLE site is under your developer control. It also means that code behind (source code) is NOT pushed up to the site.
Then you have what is called a asp.net web site. This allows you to say modify the code (code behind) of one page and then push that one page (and code) up to the site. The web site will thus re-compile that one page. You will note the "delay" that you experiance - but it ONLY occures the first time that page is published.
So, for a "application", you will in Visual Studio open up the project (and a sln file) is used.
For a web site, you from Visual Studio go open->web site.
I hands down prefer web applications, but they are MUCH harder to deploy a small change, since as noted, you have to re-publish the whole site.
However, the two different choices would thus explain the "difference" and as to why the other site don't experience the delay as much as you are. However, usually on first load - there can be a one time delay after a re-publish. And this quite much means the site is down for this time to re-publish.
Also, do keep in mind that if you do modify some files (such as web config), then this WILL cause the app-pool to re-start. (and if you not using sql server sessions, but in-memory sessions - they get blown out when you do this).
It also somewhat possible that the server with one user has more memory, more CPU and a much lighter load - so the reduced delay after making changes might well be the light load on that server.
However, the above two different publishing models and types of asp.net sites would be the first thing or at least the first issue to be aware of.
First, you need to determine if it is a website or web application project (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/aspnet/dd547590(v=vs.110)?redirectedfrom=MSDN#Anchor_1). Default for web application is rebuild for single page changes while default for website does not force recompilation except if special folders or files are modified. You may check to see if any settings for the app pool differ-- in particular "Disable Overlapping Recycle". You may also check the web.config as there may be a setting that is forcing rebuild. You want also want to look at Explicit Complication/pre-compilation option.
You may want to reference the following resources: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/ms178473(v=vs.140)?redirectedfrom=MSDN
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-forms/overview/older-versions-getting-started/deploying-web-site-projects/determining-what-files-need-to-be-deployed-cs
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/aspnet/dd547590(v=vs.110)?redirectedfrom=MSDN#Anchor_1
Optimization setting
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/davidebb/a-new-flag-to-optimize-asp-net-compilation-behavior
I always prefer using a ASP.NET Web Site over ASP.NET Web Application, as defined here: ASP.NET Web Site or ASP.NET Web Application?
It is suggested that only use 'ASP.NET Web Site' projects if you really need to (stackoverflow's tag says this); I would love to move away from this type of project, but the need to debug effectively and not waste time constantly recompiling projects for trivial changes makes me regret choosing the latter every time.
This is down to two key reasons.
Whenever you make a change to a back-end file or code-file, you are forced to rebuild the project before the change is available. With the 'ASP.NET Web Site', back-end files would be available immediately, and code-files within the 'App_Code' directory would trigger an automatic background rebuild enabling changes to be available within the next request with no developer input.
Because of this constant requirement to rebuild, you cannot make a change while debugging without stopping/starting the debugger (unless you perform an attach-to-process with a few tweaks). This is very frustrating, especially when the project gets to a certain size where the compile time makes this completely impractical. Not only that you lose all your debugging states, objects which were loaded in memory have been cleared, etc.
I'm pretty sure I am missing something, as if Web Applications are the preferred project type by the majority, how can this be with such limitations? Are there solutions for this or suggestions on how to perform a series of small changes while debugging without stopping the debugger then manually performing a rebuild each time? And is there a way to prevent back end files from needing a rebuild of the whole site? (I guess this is why 'ASP.NET Web Site' has a dll for every file or directory)
It is not a limitation, it's just how it works without the on-the-fly compilation of the WebSite template.
You can use the Edit and continue feature of Visual Studio, but not every type of change is supported.
I make an application for querying from and inserting data to the database using ASP.NET 3.5 linq to SQL.
It works fine in the development server.
But after deploying to the staging server, after the first few requests, the application seems unresponsive no matter what I type in the URL. The whole IIS application is frozen. I know I can restart the application to fix that. But I don't want it to happen again in the future.
What are the possible causes of this?
I've just found a ref about this problem:
http://blogs.msdn.com/lucascan/archive/2009/04/14/troubleshooting-an-unresponsive-web-server-iis-part-1-of-2-gathering-the-data.aspx
http://forums.iis.net/p/1154624/1893546.aspx
It's not easy to provide an exact cause since we have no idea how the application was written, what dependencies exist, whether service packs/patches are installed etc. What we could help with is debugging the application.
Things I would start with:
Find out if other applications have the same problems.
Review the server event logs on both servers.
Memory, CPU usage etc on the server with Performance Monitor (perfmon.exe)
See what SQL is being generated with SQL Profiler.
Use an HTTP Analyzer like Fiddler to find out if the server is running anything in particular but the browser is not displaying it.
As BrianLy says this is one of those tricky to pin down situations. We had several problems with ASP.NET apps taking seemingly forever to start, this was down to our corporate firewall blocking crl.microsoft.com.
It's probably a stab in the dark, but it might be worth investigating. The chances of your issue being this sound slim though.
A quick test to see if it is something related to this is to add 127.0.0.1 crl.microsoft.com to your hosts file.
I have been programming in php for a while, and recently I started a new job ago where I am now programming in c#/asp.net.
While asp has decent performance when deployed, there is one thing that has been bugging me for the past few months. After any code change it takes about 30 seconds for the page to reload for testing.
I guess it is doing the JIT compiling or something. But it can be REALLY frustrating, especially if I am concentrating, and want to test out several incremental changes as quickly as possible, only to have to stare at a blank page for 30 seconds.
Does anyone have any tips to speed this process up?
In Visual studio 2005 every reference you add adds a .refresh file that makes sure the reference did not change since last time and if so brings the new version - if your references stay the same, you can just remove it!
also see here for more tips for VS 2005
Two things I have found:
Try alternating between the "User Visual Studio Development Server" and "Local IIS Server" in your project properties / Web tab. Depending on your project, one may be faster to start and attach to than the other.
If you have projects in your solution, such as CLR-based SQL procedures, they take a few seconds to deploy to the SQL server. If you can afford to remember to turn them back on, or make a separate project config, disable them in the build so they do not get deployed every time you press F5.
Doing those cut my "F5 to live" time from about 20 seconds to 4.
I guess that can be frustrating coming from PHP.
Thirty seconds sounds far too long though. Ensure the basics like free ram etc..
A couple of tips.
1. You do not have to run the debugger in order to run the site. Once you have the site up with the built in VS web server or IIS, you can make your code changes, build and just refresh the page in your browser. No need to hit play and have VS start the whole debug process. If you actually want to debug though, you don't have a choice.
2. Changes to an aspx page do not require a rebuild. I make changes and simply refresh the page to see the result instantly.
Check out the web tab in the project settings to configure how you want VS to handle serving the site. There are some options in there to hopefully help you suite it to your style. ex. I don't let VS launch a browser for me whenever I want to debug. I set the option for it to just wait for a request. Then I can just use the browser of my choice to get started.
Good luck
I feel your pain.
Personnaly I like the ASP.NET website project better for speed of developing.
I don't know if you have that possibility though..
In visual studio do file->new website.
For this project type you don't need a rebuild all the time and you can just refresh a page in your browser when you have changed it. (no rebuild/debug necessary)
I've had similar experiences, it can be slow to recompile at times, but varies based on where and what code is being changed - ie if it is app_code or just page specific.
What sort of hardware are you running on? VS can be a memory hog, and anything less than 2GB seems to make it slow.
Our website has a very long load time due to actions which only occur during the Application Start phase (when the ASP worker process starts). In particular loading commonly used objects from a database into memory was causing a significant delay. We found that using compilation symbols to disable some features when debugging eg security and user roles, helped a lot.