AutoEventWireup Issue in MOSS 2007

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I recently promised to finish this blog post that has been sitting in "unpublished" status since June 2008, so here it is...

Have you ever encountered the following error in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007?

An error occurred during the processing of . The attribute 'autoeventwireup' is not allowed in this page.

I just searched for this using Bing and it seems like I'm not the only one who has ever experienced this issue. However, glancing through a few of the top search results, I didn't see any solutions to the error.

The problem occurs when you have a custom master page which includes code and that master page subsequently becomes unghosted. I believe this happens with custom page layouts that are customized as well.

I have to admit that I was completely stumped when I first encountered this error a few years ago while working on the Agilent Technologies project. I eventually tracked down the root cause to be unghosted pages, but we were not using SharePoint Designer to create or customize our master pages, so I couldn't understand why we would occasionally encounter this error.

My speculation is that when the feature/solution containing the custom master page is deactivated, retracted, and deleted (as part of the "DR.DADA" process), SharePoint has some "smarts" within it that essentially equates to:

  • Hey, this master page (or page layout) is currently in use so removing it could really break the site.
  • Therefore, I'd better make a copy of it and store it in the database (i.e. unghost it).

Unfortunately, when we subsequently added, deployed, and activated the solution/feature, SharePoint would still attempt to use the unghosted master page and summarily generate the error stating that "the attribute 'autoeventwireup' is not allowed in this page."

Note that this is pure speculation on my part as to what was causing the master page to become unghosted.

However, what I do know for sure is that once I reghosted the master page, the AutoEventWireup error would magically disappear.

Here are the steps to reghost a master page or page layout:

  1. Browse to Site Settings page for your site. Note that if your master page is causing the AutoEventWireup error, you can explicitly specify the URL (e.g. https://fabrikam/_layouts/settings.aspx).
  2. On the Site Settings page, under the Look and Feel section, click Reset to site definition.
  3. On the Reset Page to Site Definition Version page:
    1. In the Reset to Site Definition section, ensure the option to Reset specific page to site definition version is selected, and then in the Local URL of the page box, typtype the URL of the master page or page layout that you want reset (e.g. https://fabrikam/_catalogs/masterpage/FabrikamMinimal.master).
    2. Click Reset.
    3. In the confirmation dialog that appears stating that you will lose all customizations, including web part zones, custom controls, and in-line text, click OK.

Note that in ASP.NET, the default value for the AutoEventWireup attribute is true. Therefore you might assume that you could simply remove the attribute from your custom master page in order to avoid the error when the master page is unghosted. After all, the error clearly states that the AutoEventWireup attribute is not allowed in this page, right?

In other words, the solution to the problem would seem to be simply be a matter of changing something like this...

 <%@ Master Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" Codebehind="FabrikamMinimal.master.cs"
    Inherits="Fabrikam.Demo.Publishing.Layouts.MasterPages.FabrikamMinimal" %>

...to this:

 <%@ Master Language="C#" Codebehind="FabrikamMinimal.master.cs"
    Inherits="Fabrikam.Demo.Publishing.Layouts.MasterPages.FabrikamMinimal" %>

Unfortunately -- at least in my experience -- this doesn't work. It only leads to other errors, such as:

The event handler 'OnPreRender' is not allowed in this page.

The above error occurs when the master page contains something like the following:

             <asp:SiteMapPath ID="BreadcrumbSiteMapPath" Runat="server"
                SiteMapProvider="CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode"
                RenderCurrentNodeAsLink="true"
                SkipLinkText=""
                OnPreRender="BreadcrumbSiteMapPath_OnPreRender">

I attempted to resolve this by converting the BreadcrumbSiteMapPath_OnPreRender event handler to a method and invoking the method from the Page_PreRender event handler instead. However, that only led to yet another error:

Code blocks are not allowed in this file.

Sensing a very deep "rat hole" at this point, I decided it wasn't worth pursuing this issue any further.

Fortunately, as I've stated before, I don't believe master pages and page layouts deployed through solutions and features should subsequently be customized through SharePoint Designer. In my opinion, these items should be tightly managed through your SCM (software configuration management) process -- in other words, versioned in your source control system and subsequently deployed through a formal change process.

Of course, if your custom master pages and page layouts are very simple (i.e. no code-behind) then you probably will never encounter this problem.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 10, 2010
    Cool. I tried reset of http://<servername>/default.aspx and it worked like a charm. Thanks..

  • Anonymous
    January 27, 2011
    Jeremy, you saved my day with this posting. Many thanks. Rgds, Nico

  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2011
    Hi, I'm having this type of issue, but with custom master pages, and therefore I cannot reset to site definition. Is there a workaround for this?