The core issue here lies in how your web application is trying to serve images when it's published on the server compared to running locally.
Here's an explanation of potential mishap:
Understanding the Difference Between Local and Server Environments
Local (Works): When you run the application on your local machine, your code (string baseImagePath = @"\\WCUPOBPROC1-A\Old_Check_Images"
is executing directly on your computer. Your computer has access to the network path \\WCUPOBPROC1-A\Old_Check_Images. When your code retrieves an image from this path and likely serves it through your Images.aspx page, it's processing the image data on the server-side (your local machine in this case) and sending it as part of the HTTP response to your browser. The browser sees the image as part of the page content, not as a file it needs to fetch directly from a network path. The URL
https://localhost:44339/Images.aspx reflects the request to your local web server process.
Server (Doesn't Work): When you publish the application to the server (
https://fnweb.wescom.org/), the code is now executing on the web server. The web server process (usually running under a specific user account like "IIS AppPool" or similar) needs to have permission to access the network path \\WCUPOBPROC1-A\Old_Check_Images. This is the most common reason for this type of issue – the server process doesn't have the necessary network permissions that your local user account does.
Browser's Misinterpretation: The browser errors you're seeing (GET
https://fnweb.wescom.org/Old_Check_Images/no-image.png 404 (Not Found)) indicate that the
browser itself is trying to request the image directly from a URL that mirrors your internal server-side path (/Old_Check_Images/no-image.png). This is incorrect. The browser has no way to directly access a network share (\\WCUPOBPROC1-A\Old_Check_Images) from its end. It should be getting the image data
through your Images.aspx page, similar to how it works locally.
The 404 errors happen because:
- The browser is trying to request images using a URL (https://fnweb.wescom.org/Old_Check_Images/...) that doesn't correspond to a physical directory or a correctly configured virtual directory on the web server containing those images.
- Even if the browser could somehow interpret that URL, the underlying web server process likely lacks the permissions to access the network share \\WCUPOBPROC1-A\Old_Check_Images to retrieve the image files.
Possible Solutions to aid you:
Common ways to fix this issue:
Configure IIS Application Pool Identity for Network Access: This is the recommended server-side approach.
- On the web server, open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
- Go to "Application Pools".
- Find the application pool that your website (fnweb.wescom.org) is using.
- Right-click on the application pool and select "Advanced Settings...".
- Find the "Identity" setting, which is likely set to a built-in account like "ApplicationPoolIdentity" or "NetworkService".
- Change the Identity to a domain user account that does have read permissions to the network share \\WCUPOBPROC1-A\Old_Check_Images. You will need to provide the username and password for this domain account.
- Important Security Note: Grant this account only the necessary read permissions to the image share. Avoid using highly privileged accounts.
Serve Images Directly from the Web Server (Less Ideal for Large Shares):
- Copy the images from the network share \\WCUPOBPROC1-A\Old_Check_Images to a physical directory on your web server.
- Configure a virtual directory in IIS for your website that points to this physical directory on the server. You could name the virtual directory "Old_Check_Images".
- Modify your application's code to generate image URLs that point to this virtual directory (e.g., /Old_Check_Images/image.jpg). This might require significant code changes depending on how your Images.aspx page is generating image references. This approach is less ideal if the image share is very large or frequently updated, as it requires synchronization.
Modify Images.aspx to Stream Images: Ensure your Images.aspx page is correctly reading the image data from the network path on the server-side and writing it directly to the HTTP response output stream with the correct Content-Type header (e.g., image/jpeg, image/png). This way, the browser receives the image data as part of the page content or as the direct response to an image request targeting Images.aspx with parameters identifying the image, rather than trying to fetch the image file itself. Based on your local success, it seems you're already doing something similar, but double-check that the server-side code is indeed able to read the file from the network path.
Potential Troubleshooting Steps:
Verify Network Access from the Server: Log in to the web server machine with the user account you configured for the application pool identity (if you chose option 1). Try to access \\WCUPOBPROC1-A\Old_Check_Images through Windows Explorer. If you cannot access it, you have a network permission issue independent of IIS.
Check IIS Logs: Examine the IIS logs on the web server for more detailed information about the 404 errors. The logs can sometimes provide substatus codes that offer more clues.
Simplify and Test: Create a simple test page on the server that just tries to read a single image file from the network path using the same code logic as your Images.aspx page. This helps isolate whether the issue is with accessing the network share or with the image rendering part of your Images.aspx page.
In summary, the problem is most likely that your web server's application pool identity does not have permissions to access the network share containing the images. Configure the application pool identity in IIS with a domain account that has the necessary read permissions on \\WCUPOBPROC1-A\Old_Check_Images. I hope this helps out. Have a good day.
