Can you see the files using the File Manager?

Have you looked in /Portals/_default/logs and checked to see if errors are recorded there?

Are errors being recorded in the Admin Logs? Can you copy one to here, or from any of the logs files?

Hi Joe, thanks for the quick response!

I can see in yesterdays logs that there is the following error:
[Thread:7][ERROR] DotNetNuke.Framework.Reflection - MAI.Components.FeatureController
System.Web.HttpException (0x80004005): Could not load type 'MAI.Components.FeatureController'.

I think this is just an unrelated application error however, since I don't have any errors logged for today after logging in, and I still see the issue. Due to the resource files not loading, I don't even see the DNN host bar at the top of my screen. Although I am able to see a vertical bar on the left side of my screen that only appeared after the upgrade.

That error would seem to be coming from a module. Is MAI something that your recognize.

The missing "host bar" at the top and the "vertical bar" on the left are normal. With DNN 9.x, the control panel (host bar) was replaced by the Persona Bar (vertical panel). So in 9.x, you have the Persona Bar where all of the controls are visible to logged in administrators.

Are you able to see the missing files in the File Manager? It's available from the Persona Bar. They are called Site Assets and Global Assets, and formerly were Site and Host File Manager.

Hi Joe,

Apologies for the late response, the project was temporarily put on hold.

I believe that MAI is a dependency that was used before I took over this project and is no longer used. That error seems to be popping up randomly and not actually affecting the site.

I was able to find out that the missing resource files were due to a broken DLL file that was supposed to make the site mobile friendly. By removing this module from my web.config I was able to fix the site.

I made the finaly upgrade to 9.8 and the site is mostly working, however now I am getting a strange error when I try to login:

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at DotNetNuke.Security.Membership.AspNetMembershipProvider.UserLogin(Int32 portalId, String username, String password, String authType, String verificationCode, UserLoginStatus& loginStatus)
   at DotNetNuke.Entities.Users.UserController.ValidateUser(Int32 portalId, String username, String password, String authType, String verificationCode, String portalName, String ip, UserLoginStatus& loginStatus)
   at DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Authentication.DNN.Login.OnLoginClick(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Web.UI.WebControls.LinkButton.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Web.UI.WebControls.LinkButton.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument)
   at System.Web.UI.Page.d__523.MoveNext()

I found this page with a similar issue: https://www.dnnsoftware.c...rship-userinfo 

I'm not sure how to proceed from here. Which libraries should I try to remove? And should I be replacing them with something? Should I try running the DNN_9.8_Install package?

If you used the upgrad package to get to 9.8.0, DO NOT use the install package. That is to be used ONLY for new installs. Using it damage your DNN install fatally.

The link to a forum post at dnnsoftware.com is likely obsolete, or does not apply to you. That was a question about DNN 4, correct? We are years away from that.

Does your message mean that you cannot login to the site?

Which DNN version were you using when you did the upgrade to 9.8.0.

Do you have backups prior to the upgrade to 9.8.0? If you do, I'd return to the prior version. I think that you said that there were errors in that version. So, going back to that version and trying to fix errors before the upgrade to 9.8.0 might be a good thing to do. Then I'd start with a clean download of the 9.8.0 upgrade package, unblock it, extract the files, and try the upgrade again.

I would also suggest that you carefully read the release notes for every DNN version that you've used since 9.1.1, assuming that is where you started. And verify that you have satisfied all of the system requirements. And that any third party modules are upgraded, etc.

And keep asking questions as you need them.

Yes, I was not able to login to the site because of that exception. I had tried the Install package because when I tried the Upgrade package, the website returned a blank white screen with no errors and I wasn't sure how to proceed. Instead of figuring out the upgrade, I took dev instance of the site (which was already upgraded to 9.6) and moved the data into that database which worked!

Now I have a new error with email and I can't tell if it's related to the upgrade or not. At first the SMTP settings wouldn't load, and then following this suggestion, https://dnncommunity.org/forums/aft/823, I deleted the SMTPPassword setting in the PortalSettingsTable. Now I am able to edit the settings and send emails, but there is an exception in the GetSystemMessage function which is causing some of the emails to come back with the Body text of the Message Tag instead of the System Message that's supposed to replace it.

Here is my stack trace for the exception:

[ERROR] DotNetNuke.Services.Localization.Localization - System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at DotNetNuke.Entities.Users.UserInfo.GetProperty(String propertyName, String format, CultureInfo formatProvider, UserInfo accessingUser, Scope currentScope, Boolean& propertyNotFound)
   at DotNetNuke.Services.Tokens.BaseCustomTokenReplace.replacedTokenValue(String objectName, String propertyName, String format)
   at DotNetNuke.Services.Tokens.BaseTokenReplace.ReplaceTokens(String sourceText)
   at DotNetNuke.Services.Localization.Localization.GetSystemMessage(String strLanguage, PortalSettings portalSettings, String messageName, UserInfo userInfo, String resourceFile, ArrayList customArray, IDictionary customDictionary, String customCaption, Int32 accessingUserID)
 

When I look at the code, I see this line seems to be failing: "PropertySource[objectName.ToLower()].GetProperty("

I'm not sure where to go from here since I haven't ever figured out how to debug the code.

Separately, I'm still trying to understand how the upgrades work. Now that I performed the upgrade on the website, does the code need to be upgraded as well? How would I go about doing that to my existing project?

Thanks again for all your help!

Is it still possible to revert to a working version prior to your upgrade attempts? If so, I'd recommend doing that, or at least doing on a separate server. Then you can tackle the upgrade process on step at a time.

So, looking at the original StackOverflow post, you started at DNN 8. Which version? And you had some issues getting to DNN 9.1 So, start back there and do it again,

I tried that and it turns out I actually had a very similar error when I revert back to DNN 8. Here is the stack trace:
[ERROR] DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.Exceptions - ~/Default.aspx?tabid=370&error=An unexpected error has occurred
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at DotNetNuke.Entities.Users.UserInfo.GetProperty(String propertyName, String format, CultureInfo formatProvider, UserInfo accessingUser, Scope currentScope, Boolean& propertyNotFound)
at DotNetNuke.Services.Tokens.BaseCustomTokenReplace.replacedTokenValue(String objectName, String propertyName, String format)
at DotNetNuke.Services.Tokens.BaseTokenReplace.ReplaceTokens(String sourceText)
at DotNetNuke.Services.Tokens.TokenReplace.ReplaceTokens(String sourceText)
at DotNetNuke.Services.Tokens.TokenReplace.ReplaceEnvironmentTokens(String sourceText, IDictionary custom, String customCaption)
at DotNetNuke.Services.Localization.Localization.GetSystemMessage(String strLanguage, PortalSettings portalSettings, String messageName, UserInfo userInfo, String resourceFile, ArrayList customArray, IDictionary customDictionary, String customCaption, Int32 accessingUserID)
at DotNetNuke.Services.Localization.Localization.GetSystemMessage(String strLanguage, PortalSettings portalSettings, String messageName, UserInfo userInfo, String resourceFile, ArrayList custom, String customCaption, Int32 accessingUserID)
at DotNetNuke.Services.Mail.Mail.SendMail(UserInfo user, MessageType msgType, PortalSettings settings)
at DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Security.SendPassword.OnSendPasswordClick(Object sender, EventArgs e) in C:\Users\rosborn\Documents\DotNetNuke\Dnn.Platform-8.0.4\Website\admin\Security\SendPassword.ascx.cs:line 314
at System.Web.UI.WebControls.LinkButton.OnClick(EventArgs e)
at System.Web.UI.WebControls.LinkButton.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument)
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

When I change the GlobalResources.resx in the live site (the site that's still on 9.6, I only reverted it in my dev environment), I am able to see the message when I remove the tags for User and Membership. It works fine with the Portal tag. [Portal:PortalName] for example works fine, but [User:Username] does not.