Monthly Archives: April 2011

The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period

This is a brand new issue that I just came across while working on my new workstation, which has a 120gb OCZ Vertex 3 SATA 6.0 SSD drive as the primary boot drive into port #1 of the SATA 6.0 channel, running on a ASUS Maximus Extreme IV rev B3 motherboard running Windows 7 x64 Ultimate w/SP1.  The symptom is your PC freezing for around 30 seconds or more and then resuming normal operation.  I was getting these freezes throughout the first few days using this configuration.

The errors would also show up in the SYSTEM event log, called iaStor event ID 9.

The Solution:

In the BIOS, first make sure you are in AHCI mode.  Then choose HOT PLUG=ENABLED for your SSD boot drive (which should be on port #1 of the SATA 6.0 controller).

Save changes and boot up and your problems will be history.

 

IIS WordPress images 500 error

If you are here you probably are having the dreaded “broken images” problem while running WordPress under IIS.

You may have found this issue by looking at the IIS logfiles for your site and seeing 500 errors logged when it’s supposed to be pushing out images.

I will save you a lot of time.

This is all about fixing permissions so that images/media/files uploaded via WordPress will properly render.

This is the fix for the infamous “500” error that is thrown when your server has wrong file permissions and the visual result is all the images you uploaded are “broken images” and won’t display. Also called HTTP Error 500.50 – URL Rewrite Module Error when you have Detailed errors on.

  1. Don’t sweat it, I will save you HOURS of time on this one.   Thanks to the article I found here after HOURS of tracking this issue down, this problem is caused because PHP first uploads the document to a temporary directory (by default C:\Windows\Temp), and then moves it from that directory to the actual /blog/wp-content/uploads/ subdirectory.  What happens is that because IIS does not have any permissions to your “C:\Windows\Temp” directory, when the file is uploaded there, then moved by PHP, the file inherits NO permissions.  So when IIS trys to serve out that file from your /blog/wp-content/uploads/subdirectory it throws a 500 error and that is actually a permissions error.
  2. The solution:  on the Windows\Temp folder, grant “modify” permissions to both IUSR and {servername}\IIS_IUSRS user accounts.
  3. Now when you upload files via PHP and PHP moves them to the correct directory, the files will have the correct permissions and can be accessed.
  4. Important note #1:  If you already have uploaded files and are getting the dreaded broken images issue, go to the /blog/wp-content/uploads/directory and replace/update the permissions to add access for both user accounts noted above.  That will solve that issue.
  5. Important note #2: as with any change off the defaults for Windows, you do this AT YOUR OWN RISK.  It’s up to you if you want to grant the Windows\Temp directory permissions for those two accounts.  If you don’t PHP won’t be able to upload without the 500 issue (unless you move the PHP temp folder elsewhere and grant those accounts access to the other folder).  Do these changes at your own risk… I cannot and won’t take any responsiblity for your systems.  Please know what you are doing.

UPDATE: 04/29/2011:  One reader commented to me that he is concerned about changing security permissions on the Windows TEMP directory, and he noted that you can also edit the php.ini file and change the location of the “upload_tmp_dir” variable and point it to another location.  It’s up to you how you want to do this, as long as you have the right permissions mentioned above, your WP images and future uploads will work fine.

 

Trying to install/run ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT on W2K8R2 Windows 2008 R2 Server

If you happen to get this message when trying to launch ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT under Windows 2008 R2 Server:

The page you requested has generated an error. Please visit our homepage by clicking this link.

The issue is most likely that you are running a 32 bit version of ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT on a 64 bit server.

to fix this:

  1. IIS Manager
  2. Application Pools
  3. click on the application pool for the ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT app
  4. advanced settings
  5. Enable 32-bit applications = TRUE
  6. Click recycle

Retry your application.  It should work now.

 

Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash under Windows 2008 Server

Need help getting the Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash working under W2K8 or W2K8 R2 server?

Here is how to properly configure your server:

  1. Install the Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash software and register it using your registration key.
  2. In the destination folder for the videos, you will need to grant {machinename}\IUSR full control.
  3. the MyRequest.dll file (for ASP) won’t work properly, so if you are using ASP, you will need to use some other method to upload files to the server.  One good choice is ASPUPLOAD.COM
  4. Presuming you have already setup a site under the IIS 7.5 management tool, you need to change the pool to LOCAL SYSTEM.  Do this by locating the application pool for this site, then click ADVANCED SETTINGS (on the right nav) and under PROCESS MODEL, for Identity, select LOCALSYSTEM
  5. Click OK to close out of the property page above, then click RECYCLE
  6. You will need to grant scripts and executables property to the site.  It’s different under IIS 7 and IIS 7.5 to do this… so on the site home, open HANDLER MAPPINGS, and click “edit feature permissions” and check execute.  Then click OK and exit out.
  7. I would advise at this point to restart IIS on this box by clicking the server name and then RESTART in the right nav.
  8. If you’ve done all the above properly, you should have no problems encoding videos using Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash on a Windows 2008 server.