I have been researching the use of WebDAV as a means of moving big files to and from a company website using Windows Explorer as the medium.

I am able to create and use WebDAV effectively but I am running into the issue of loosing the WebDAV connection once I close and try to reopen another Windows Explorer. It is not a problem for about a minute or so, I can reopen as many times in that period as I need, but when I leave it alone or finish loading a large file I am unable to open another session. The only way to open another session is to close out the browser and start over.

I have used fiddler and a couple other troubleshooting applications in attempt to identify why the connection closes but I have not seen anything out of the ordinary.

Any advise or steps I should take to find a workable solution?

There aren't any solutions really. This bit is the responsibility of Microsoft. Windows has its own way to do things. This includes authentication and caching. Especially the caching can throw the wrench into this mechanism. What you could try is to add the login credentials to the Windows credentials store on the client machine. That might help Windows redo the login when the login has timed out.

Peter

We are not using an active directory provider or .net nuke for intiating the WebDAV session (no windows cache). We are using a third party website that hosts the WebDAV server. Upon creating the session it pulls from the website to create the windows explorer session, from what I understand.

So it is the IE cache not the local windows cache. Could it be that we are loosing a cookie during the IE session?

When IE opens the Windows Explorer window it does that using a cookie. This cookie was set earlier by DMX. It identifies the user to DMX like the regular forms cookie that handles your DNN login. These cookies time out. And when they do, the Explorer is no longer authenticated and DMX's WebDAV will challenge the Explorer using digest authentication. This works much like AD in the sense that you normally see a popup to ask for a login. You enter the DNN credentials and it should be fine. But ... sometimes the Explorer doesn't pop up the login. Why this is haphazard is a mystery to me. But it seems to have something to do with the way it caches "I've logged in so I'm good". Somehow it will fail if it believes it was already logged in and things have timed out.

Peter

Peter, I see that DMX version 06.01.00 has been released, and that an enhancement: WebDAV cookie timeout now configurable, is available. Will this provide a workaround for the issue we're having with the cookie timing out in windows 7? If so, are there directions on how to configure this setting? Thank you.

Yes, it should help. Go to the main options of the module and set the value to what you want. It will emit a new timeout value to the client browser. So as long as the browser respects that you should be fine.

Peter

Have you released the latest dmx version 6.1 on the dotnetnuke store? If not when was that projected?

It was released in the DNN Store simultaneously as here. I'm somewhat confused with how they do their notifications of updates and so forth as it has significantly changed since Snowcovered. I assume they're doing things correctly. In any case I updated everything I could there.

Peter

I am looking to change the timeout session of the webDAV cookie with the new DMX release. I am not sure how to approach this. Is there a GUI option where I can change the timeout period? Or would I have to go through the command line to change this?

Thanks.

Check out the main options page of the module. It is there as a setting.
Peter