ASP.Net Web Site Won't Compile, But Works Anyway?!

Question

I have an ASP.Net 2.0 web site, using the DotNetNuke framework (4.09), and it will not compile, but when I hit the site in a browser, it works. Even the parts that don't compile will work. How is IIS able to compile and run this site, when Visual Studio can't? Everything is the same in both places... I copied the entire web site from the remote server on to my local machine, then I set it up in IIS the same way. On my local machine, Visual Studio can't compile the site, but it still runs. How can this be possible?

The specific errors are not important, as there are 189 of them, from every possible part of the site. I'm not trying to fix the errors... what I want to know is how it's possible for the web server to run the site, regardless of the errors. Please pay attention to what I have written - everything is exactly the same in both places. There are no missing DLLs, no different configurations, nothing on the machine itself... remember, the site runs fine on my local machine.

Answer 1

To give you an answer on this we would need to know what the errors are.

Answer 2

The site is using old dlls, or possibly you have references missing in your local version that the server has just fine.

As Mitchel said, we need to see the error before we can really answer your question.

Answer 3

Is this a web site or a web application? If it's a web application, you're probably still running off the last successfully built bits in the bin.

Answer 4

Your local machine cached the 'working' copy and is using that maybe?