Web.config settings - e.g. ViewState, Session

A common issue raised in the CRM Development forum is of custom web pages that work correctly in a development environment, but then fail to work when deployed into the CRM web site. The most common reason for this is that the CRM web.config overrides some of the default ASP.Net configuration settings.

The relevant entries in the CRM web.config (in the root of the CRM web site) are:

<pages buffer="true" enableSessionState="false" enableViewState="false" validateRequest="false/">
<sessionState mode="Off"/>

These have 2 main consequences:

1. Session State is disabled. This issue is relatively easy to diagnose, as you tend to get a clear error message if trying to use session state when it is disabled
2. ViewState is disabled. This can be a more subtle effect, as developers often rely on viewState without necessarily being aware of it. ViewState is what allows ASP.Net web controls to maintain property values across web requests; if it is disabled then it leads to symptoms such as values not being retained, or list boxes losing their contents

The solution for viewState is straightforward. You can reenable viewState for you application either in the web.config in your application directory, or at the page level within the <@Page> directive. These looks like the following:

web.config:
<pages enableViewState="true" />

Page directive:
<@Page EnableViewState="true" />

Session state is a bit more complex, as this is configured at the web application level. Personally, I've never seen any reason to use session state within custom code in the CRM web site; CRM doesn't use this, and I find it best to mimic CRM behaviour wherever possible.

And one final point about best practise; as this post demonstrates, it is best not to rely on the default ASP .Net configuration settings, rather I find it best to always explicitly enable or disable settings in the local web.config