Skin problem after updating

[Jeanne]

I just update my project from radControls for ASP.NET Ajax Q2 2012 to Q3 2012 and now I am getting the following error:

Telerik.Web.UI.RadFormDecorator with ID='RadFormDecorator1' was unable to find an embedded skin with the name 'WebBlue'. Please, make sure that the skin name is spelled correctly and that you have added a reference to the Telerik.Web.UI.Skins.dll assembly in your project. If you want to use a custom skin, set EnableEmbeddedSkins=false.

I checked and I DO have a reference to Telerik.Web.UI.Skins.dll in my project! I even tried deleting and re-adding the reference with no luck. I checked the version of the Telerik.Web.UI.Skins.dll Telerik.Web.UI.Skins.dll file in my /Bin folder and it is the correct version. I've restarted Visual Studio repeatedly and it doesn't help!

[Jeanne]

After repeated upgrading, mucking with references, rebuilds, etc. the problem has finally gone away. Not sure what I did that actually made the difference. Afraid to try the upgrade on my work computer!

[Bozhidar]

Hello,

I could not tell what happened as we do not have access to the process, but since most of the people know about both DLL - Telerik.Web.UI and Telerik.Web.UI.Skins this process is clear and most customer do not experience such a problem. Usually after upgrade it could be necessary to restart Visual Studio.

Finally it is good that you have successfully upgraded to the latest version.

All the best,
Bozhidar
the Telerik team

[Jeanne]

Since I had already upgraded the project on my laptop, I bit the bullet and ran the update on my work PC too. Fortunately the upgrade process went much more smoothly this time.

It would still be nice to know what caused the problem initially, and why it finally went away. What would cause the RadFormDecorator to be unable to find the skin when it has references to the current dlls?

[Bozhidar]

Hi,

It would be nice for us also to know what could cause the problem, but as we are not aware of such a problem and you are the first to report and it only happened once, while your other two upgrades were successful.

Until it is the only case reported, we will not consider it as a bug, but as a human mistake during the installation process, that caused Telerik.Web.UI.Skin not to be loaded properly.

All the best,
Bozhidar
the Telerik team

[Jeanne]

It was definitely NOT a human mistake! Whatever caused the problem was not the result of something I did wrong. Updating to a new version just isn't that difficult - it's only a few button clicks, when it works correctly. However between your installers and updaters, WIndows 7 and Visual Studio 2010, there are a lot of places things can go wrong. Blaming it on something I did just because you haven't seen it before is downright rude and insulting to a loyal customer!

[Bozhidar]

Hi,

Excuse me if I was wrong, I didn`t mentioned you did something wrong, but something went wrong accidentally. You asked, that you want to "It would still be nice to know what caused the problem initially", I hope you understand that without looking at the process and the error, it is hard to presume what happened.

And I hope you will understand it is not blaming, but a conclusion something went wrong, and we don`t know what it is. I am agree, that the process is simple and you did it right. Most probably it is an accidental problem between different software or even Telerik`s updating process problem, but until it is not reproducible regularly at customer`s machines and / or ours, it will be hard to tell what it is.

Regards,
Bozhidar
the Telerik team

[Jeanne]

Apology accepted. I get a little touchy about things like that. I agree that between your Control Panel, your Upgrade Wizard, Visual Studio 2010 (which has plenty of problems itself) and Windows 7 there are any number of things that could go wrong. I was just hoping that there were only a finite number of things which might cause that specific error message, which would help narrow down the problem, and the solution. I guess not.

If anyone else has this problem the solution is apparently to do just what I did: rerun the upgrade wizard, restart Visual Studio, delete and re-add references, rebuild the project, repeatedly, and in no specific order, until it goes away (if you're lucky). Not great advice, but probably the best solution we're going to get in this case.

We'll consider this issue solved and closed. Thanks for you help.

[Bozhidar]

Hello again,

Thank you for understanding. Even if we don`t know what the problem is exactly, if you mean this error message:

Telerik.Web.UI.RadFormDecorator with ID='RadFormDecorator1' was unable to find an embedded skin with the name 'WebBlue'. Please, make sure that the skin name is spelled correctly and that you have added a reference to the Telerik.Web.UI.Skins.dll assembly in your project. If you want to use a custom skin, set EnableEmbeddedSkins=false.

It is related to the fact that for some reason Telerik.Web.UI.Skins dll was not loaded/recognized in your project.

Actually this is the blog post explaining Separate Skin Assembly in RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX with Q3'11, but I think you have already separated DLL, but for some reason as it was not recognized it gave the same error.

Kind regards,
Bozhidar
the Telerik team

[Bradley D.]

I am also experiencing this issue suddenly but I did not update. I have downloaded the kendo demo recently but not sure if that would affect telerik asp.net. I have checked to make sure and I have included the required dll's. 

[Bozhidar]

Hi,

Most probably it should happen after an application restart. Then the url are probably cached and next time you try to load the application they are not refreshed and the resources could not be find.

You could try to set the spreadsheet manager to CDN to check if this will still happens.

Useful resources:

http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/scriptmanager-cdn-support.html
http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/scriptmanager.html

Regards,
Bozhidar
the Telerik team

[Terence]

I updated today (based on pop up recommendation from Telerik) and this resulted in the same 'missing skin' error when running my visual studio web site in debug mode. My error is can't find Windows7 skin. I rebuilt the project, no help. I will shut down visual studio and start again... I see the dll and the refresh file, which points to the right place, in my bin directory. It was all working fine before the Telerik update - this is why I am always wary of updating - it ends up costing valuable time getting things working again.

No luck. It is frustration to upgrade to the latest dll's and then not be able to run. I'll keep searching.

Telerik.Web.UI.RadWindowManager with ID='MasterRadWindowManager' was unable to find an embedded skin with the name 'Windows7'. Please, make sure that the skin name is spelled correctly and that you have added a reference to the Telerik.Web.UI.Skins.dll assembly in your project. If you want to use a custom skin, set EnableEmbeddedSkins=false.

[Marin Bratanov]

Hi Terence,
 
I am sorry to hear about your negative experience with automated updates.

What I can suggest is performing the update manually by following these simple steps: http://blogs.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/posts/12-12-21/upgrade-the-version-of-your-telerik-asp.net-controls-in-6-easy-steps.

The most likely reason for the problem you are having is that the Skins dll reference was not updated properly. If you are upgrading from a really old version that did not have this assembly at all the automated wizard could not have known your project needs it.

Regards,
Marin Bratanov
Telerik

[Jacqueline]

Hi all, 

Just finished debugging a similar issue and thought I'd post that it was because another developer had previously updated the Telerik.Web.UI dll from 2012 -> 2013v40. When I went to add in custom skins, I used the installer and added 2013v35 Telerik.Web.UI.Skins dll. The UI dll failed to recognize the alternative Skins dll, so double check your versions and make sure that the new dlls are being copied to wherever you are running your built project from.

Best, J

[Jon]

I have had similar issues following the upgrade to the 2014 Q1 release due to the fact that controls were configured to use specific skins which no longer exist.

However, I also had problems with the Skin Chooser in the RadSkinManager. These turned out to be because users (including me) had cookies pointing to skins which have been removed in the 2014 Q1 release. Whilst advising users to delete their cookies resolved the problem, it wasn't the best of user experiences. Shouldn't the Skin Chooser have 'failed safe' in such circumstances?

[Radoslav]

Hello Jon,

Indeed, if you have some custom logic for persisting selected skins you need to change it when upgrade to the latest version, because some of the skins are removed. However could you please elaborate a bit more on your scenario? What do you mean by "failed safe” functionality into the Skin Chooser?

Looking forward for your reply.

Regards,
Radoslav
Telerik

 

 

[Jon]

There was no custom logic involved. The issue was simply that, following the upgrade to the 2014 Q1 release, users with skin names embedded in browser cookies for skins that no longer existed were getting server generated error messages because those skins were no longer present as items in the Skin Chooser drop down list. Once the browser cookies were deleted, the issue was resolved.

My experience suggests that, whereas, the standard DropDownList control throws an exception if there is an attempt to select an item that isn't there, the Telerik equivalent doesn't - it simply highlights the 1st item in the list. I was thus taken by surprise that the Skin Chooser DropDownList behaved like the standard DropDownList rather than the Telerik equivalent.

[Radoslav]

Hello Jon,

Thank you for your valuable feedback. I will forward your suggestion to our developers for further consideration.

If you need further assistance, do not hesitate to contact us again.

Regards,
Radoslav
Telerik

 

 

[Joseph]

I am facing this problem right now.  I have users all over the world, who happen to be army, who all seem to use forest.  Since the upgrade I had to revert the skin dll back after receiving the manager errors.  I to can't believe that the dropdown can't handle a missing skin with no default set for it.  I don't want to have to inform thousands of users to clear there cookies so they can set a new skin.

Is there an interanl build to test yet, has anyone addressed this.

[Ivan Zhekov]

Hi, Joseph.

We'll be creating an updated version of Forest skin. However this will not be in the main assembly, nor the skins assembly, but rather an external assembly (or "static" skin), which developers will have to include.

Regards,
Ivan Zhekov
Telerik

 

 

[Joseph]

The issue is not so much the skin although it is supper popular with the army to.  It is when the skin manager goes to read the session cookie for the skin.  There is no default if the skin is not found, it just blows up, so my users who have this set don't even get to my logon as it crashes with a similar error above.  That is the most important issue,  if they cant get to the logon then they wont see the message to clear cookes.  I have thousands all over the world, no easy way to desiminate and get everyone to do it at same time.  This is just a real pain, a little more thought should have gone into the manager release with the fact that not everyone who uses telerik develops andriod or phone apps.  Due to government restriction we usually run about two years behind anyway in tech. development.

[Angel Petrov]

Hello Joseph,

Could you please elaborate more on how are the skins actually applied? From your previous post I noticed that a skin chooser is used. Can you please provide us with a small sample alongside with the steps that one must perform in order to reproduce the unwanted behavior? That would be of great help to us as we will be able to thoroughly research the matter and try to provide an appropriate solution to the problem.

Regards,
Angel Petrov
Telerik

 

 

[Joseph]

Pretty easy to replicate.  Just set up a skin manager, using the previous skin.dll, the one that still has forest.  set skin manger to cookie the browser like it is set too.  choose a skin that is no longer available in the new skin.dll like forest.  (our skin manager is on master page.)  then replace the skin.dll with the new one without forest.  What will happen is when you go to run the project and your browser opens, the skin manager will try to load the skin from the browser cookie, when it does not find the right skin, it just blows up with a skin not availabe, it does not gracefully go to the next available in the manager.  The only way I have found to get rid of the error is to clear all browser cookies.  This is not an exceptable solution.  Need an update to the skin manager, that if it does not find the skin from the browser cookie, then just choose one from the available list.

[Joseph]

Look at JON post he is having the exact problem also.

[Ivan Zhekov]

I am attaching one DLL and one project:

* the DLL is just the Forest skin
* the project is the one used to build it.

Note that currently the project is built against a random version of RadControls, where as you will need to build it against the version you need.

Regards,
Ivan Zhekov
Telerik

 

 

[Jon]

I'm really surprised that Telerik haven't addressed this problem yet as it potentially affects any application which uses the RadSkinManager SkinChooser RadComboBox control to allow users to select their skin preference and then persists that selection as a cookie in the user's browser. If a subsequent Telerik release deprecates a skin referenced in the browser cookie, the user gets a 'yellow screen of death' which, quite frankly, isn't very professional.

In order that I don't get burned by this issue again, I am now using the Telerik Persistence Framework to persist users' skin selections. I have a setting in the web.config file which contains a delimited list of the deprecated skins. Just after calling RadPersesistenceManager1.LoadState() in the Page Load method, I check the value of RadSkinManager1.Skin and if it is in the deprecated skin list, I change the skin to Default. The user will then continue to get the Default Skin until he/she makes another selection from the SkinChooser.

[Pete]

It's 2016 and Sitefinity is up to version 8.2 and the problem still exists.

The problem is typically experienced when a widget template is dependent upon a skin file that Sitefinity no longer supports.

For example, I just upgraded from version 6.3 to 8.2. I had some custom calendar templates that were based on one of the built in calendar templates from 6.3. When I say "based on" I mean I literally copy and pasted the code from a built in calendar template and then made my modifications.

The built in templates in version 6.3 had controls that looked like this:

<telerik:RadWindowManager id="radWindowManager" runat="server" Modal="True" Skin="Sitefinity">

The built in templates in version 8.2 changed the name of the skin file:

<telerik:RadWindowManager id="radWindowManager" runat="server" Modal="True" Skin="Default">

Needless to say, when I ran the site after upgrading to 8.2 the calendar widgets were crashing because they couldn't find the "Sitefinity" skin file and displaying the error reference in the topic. I can only imagine that someone thought it would be "better" to change the name of the default skin to "Default" instead of "Sitefinity", but then neglected to comprehend the negative impact this change would have.

It wasn't a huge cause of frustration as I was able to locate and fix the problem rather quickly, but as someone else above already pointed out, this is not very professional.

[Maria Ilieva]

Hello Pete,

We completely understand your concerns, however like the blog post, that announce the skins' obsoleting mentioned the creation of new modern skins lead to the fact that creating and supporting all  skins we had for almost 80 controls had become a tremendous effort for our teams. What is more, the skins dramatically increase the size of our assembly. In the past in order to avoid dropping the support for some skins, we moved all skins out of our main assembly. We were at a crossroad when the only option for us was to obsolete a few of our themes.
So the skins clearance wasn't exactly a breaking change, but a way to free space for the new modern skins we added.
In addition we provided download links for the removed skins in the Skin Exchange portal.

We understand that this change is creating additional work on your side and we are genuinely sorry. If there was another solution to our issues and future skins' strategy, we would had chosen it.

Thank you for your understanding.

Regards,
Maria Ilieva
Telerik