I found this by accident and feel that it must be a settings issue. I was initially trying to solve a problem with uploading large files. In the process of implementing a solution I was able to get the file uploaded in approximately 2 minutes whereas before it would timeout after a much longer time period. The strange thing is this: the first thing that is done is a routine to check for the correct date contained in the filename using regular expressions. If it is not correct it immediately returns an exception. when I run the code from within the development environment on my local machine it returns immediately. When I load the compiled project on the server and run it from there it takes 2 minutes to return the same exception! The same 2 minutes required to upload the file after I correct the date in the filename! So I have to assume I have a setting somewhere in the config file or on the server which forces postback to take all the time it is allowed whether it is a simple validation or an involved uploading of a large file. Am I on the right track? There is nothing else this page does, no special controls or update panels, just a couple of textbox controls and a button.