up vote 0 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I have several servers to test new code on. I primarily push out asp.NET web applications. Last week, I had an issue where I installed a newly developed web application on three servers. The three servers all run in separate environments. The application worked fine on two of them, but consistently crashed on the third server with each web request. The problem was eventually traced to an in-house developed .dll file being out of date on the third server.

I'm certain that this kind of thing happens all the time. However, there are numerous things that could go wrong to cause this kind of behavior.

I spent quite a bit of time tracing this problem. I would like to make a list of things to be suspicious of next time this happens.

What are the most likely reasons that a web application would crash on one of my servers while identical code runs fine on another server?

link|improve this question
75% accept rate
2  
your question seems flawed because it wasn't identical code on all 3 servers. Wouldn't more appropriate questions be "how did that one server contain an out-of-date dll" and "how do we reliably ensure that all 3 servers get all updated code and dependencies upon a deployment"? – MattB May 28 '10 at 14:12
1  
The question is overly broad. In addition to the reason you found, there can be other software or configuration dependencies, hardware problems and many other issues. Troubleshooting is often short-circuited by analysis of specific conditions such as error messages, log entries, invalid output, etc. Change control (for example making sure that updates are rolled out consistently) will go a long way toward proactively reducing this type of occurrence. – Dennis Williamson May 28 '10 at 15:26
@MattB & Dennis: Good points. As Matt stated, a better question would be "How do we keep the code on these servers in synch?" – joeqwerty May 28 '10 at 17:28
feedback

Know someone who can answer? Share a link to this question via email, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.