My colleagues and I are working on a new project, I just cloned the project on a new laptop and while starting for the first time I see this error screen. I have emptied the connectionStrings to make a new local SqlLite database. Does anyone know how this error occurs? The logs do not show any errors. It does show "Umbraco is in installation mode so usync will not run" so I would expect the installation screen to be shown. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1265942077469098025/1265942077661909016/image.png?ex=66a357ef&is=66a2066f&hm=1eeee0717d3389a7980a1c32abab46f4fbfb3d271d5987dde3f458560cf12eaf&

How are you starting it? F5 from VS?

dotnet run

? I don't recognize this, but it seems like the entire server-side part is malfunctioning.

I've tried with both. Also tried running it on IIS, same error persists. It does indeed seem like the entire server side is malfunctioning, which is why I find it weird that it does notify me of the installation, that seems to indicate that it is working

Anything in the logs? There should be logs on disk, iirc

umbraco\Logs

. And is there a body in the 500 that the screen above shows (check with F12 Network)? And if you turn on ASP.NET Core stdout logging, is there anything there? If you start the app manually from the command line (or is this what

dotnet run

does?), are there any errors in the console?

No there are no errors, It only shows that Umbraco is in upgrade mode. It has just gotten a bit weirder, when I use an existing SqlClient provider (the one that is used for the testing environment for this project), it actually works! So it has to be something to do with not having a connectionString (and thereby triggering the install mode)

No idea. My guess is the repo you cloned contains an installation that requires an existing database for some reason. We always put the post-installation database in the repo to use as part of setting up a dev env (and then uSync does the rest, for eternity).

That's weird. We usually let all developers use SqlLite databases and use Usync for all the syncing of content / datatypes etc. If you clear the connectionString in the appsettings then Umbraco should just launch the installation screen, whatever the rest of the repo contains

Tell us what it was when you find it 🙂

Databases in the repository.. it makes me sad. Indeed, it should just launch, restore uSync and go! No need for a pre-installed db. I would probably add a unattended install in appsettings.development.json so everyone gets the same initial admin user. Other than that, this blank screen indicates some of the frontend bits are missing, a nuget restore should've added them but.. don't know why it didn't! I'd recommend clearing local nuget cache and trying again.

That's what it does, but we put the post-install database in the repo (just ootb stuff) so developers don't need to install Umbraco and since we use SQL Server for development. So, maybe your sadness can stay at acceptable levels. Please believe it is my desire to not bring uncalled-for sadness unto others. Isn't the broken UI just because the bundled backoffice css endpoint doesn't work either? It sounded like it worked with an existing connection string. > when I use an existing SqlClient provider [...] it actually works!

I've cleared the cache and keep running into the same problem. The fact that it works with an existing db is what makes it so weird to me. I've cloned some more projects that I'm working on (some plugins) and I can build and run those just fine. So there has to be something in the repo

> lease believe it is my desire to not bring uncalled-for sadness unto others. Haha! Don't worry, I'll survive! 😉

Do you have any Unattended Install settings configured? If you have any of those settings set, but without a connection string and client, that can break the site like this. Are you able to share your appsettings.json?

I do not have Unattended install set, the entire (redacted) appsettings.json is

{
  "$schema": "./appsettings-schema.json",
  "Serilog": {
    "MinimumLevel": {
      "Default": "Information",
      "Override": {
        "Microsoft": "Warning",
        "Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime": "Information",
        "System": "Warning"
      }
    }
  },

"Umbraco": {
  "CMS": {
    "Content": {
      "AllowEditInvariantFromNonDefault": true,
      "ContentVersionCleanupPolicy": {
        "EnableCleanup": true
      },
      "LoginBackgroundImage": "/login/background.jpg",
      "LoginLogoImage": "/login/logo.svg",
      "MacroErrors": "Silent"
    },
    "Global": {
      "Id": "f8e7937f-b32b-4e21-a929-53a2227dbe18",
      "SanitizeTinyMce": true,
      "Smtp": {
        
      },
      "VersionCheckPeriod": 0,
      "TimeOut": "02:00:00",
      "DefaultUILanguage": "nl-NL"
    },
    "Hosting": {
      "Debug": false
    },
    "KeepAlive": {
      "DisableKeepAliveTask": true
    },
    "ModelsBuilder": {
      "ModelsMode": "Nothing"
    },
    "RequestHandler": {
      "AddTrailingSlash": false
    },
    "RichTextEditor": {
      "CustomConfig": {
        "paste_as_text": true
      }
    },
    "RuntimeMinification": {
      "UseInMemoryCache": false,
      "CacheBuster": "Timestamp"
    },
    "Security": {
      "AllowPasswordReset": true
    }
  },
  "Storage": {
    "AzureBlob": {
      "Media": {

      }
    }
  }
}

Hmmm, nothing obvious there, nothing in

appsettings.Development.json

?

No nothing special at all. This is my development.json:

json {
  "$schema": "./appsettings-schema.json",
  "Serilog": {
    "MinimumLevel": {
      "Default": "Information"
    },
    "WriteTo": [
      {
        "Name": "Async",
        "Args": {
          "configure": [
            {
              "Name": "Console"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  "Umbraco": {
    "CMS": {
      "Content": {
        "MacroErrors": "Throw"
      },
      "Hosting": {
        "Debug": true
      },
      "RuntimeMinification": {
        "UseInMemoryCache": true
      },
      "ModelsBuilder": {
        "ModelsMode": "SourceCodeManual",
        "ModelsDirectory": "~/Common/Models/Pages/Generated",
        "ModelsNamespace": "MyProject.Web.Common.Models.Pages"
      },
      "Security": {
        "KeepUserLoggedIn": true
      }
    }
  },
  "uSync": {
    "Settings": {
      "ImportOnFirstBoot": true
    }
  },
  "UrlTracker": {
    "Enable": false
  }
}

Just a hint that it's so much easier to read if you add a bit of code highlighting with three backticks around the code and possibly a language https://gist.github.com/nul800sebastiaan/8caf7ab8d5e152029c2c998d60ca8f1b

Thanks for the tip! Didn't know that was possible on Discord too. I updated the appsettings 🙂