Hi,

I had a similar problem on a site upgrade, it was a while back, so im not 100% on the detail but i did a sql trace, and it was caused by something not quite being right in the database.

I think it was the size of the dataNvarchar column in the cmsPropertyTable. but test this first!

I have the following SQL which i had as part of an upgrade.

ALTER TABLE dbo.cmsPropertyData 
ALTER COLUMN dataNvarchar nvarchar(max)
GO

from memory this fixed the problem on the upgrades. On a site where the sorts had already being attempted - the db sort orders where a bit messed up, and it could take a few attempts at sorting before it righted itself.

again, sorry, i am dredging this up, but I did have to do something in the DB & i think this was it.

Kevin,

That sounds a plausible problem. Strange that the date is stored in nvarchar but maybe there is a reason for this. Max sounds a bit drastic. Do you remember what size it was before? I just tried again and while waiting looked at the HTML returned, using Firebug and saw:

    <div id="content">
    <div class="content-container">
        <h3>HTTP Error 500.19 - Internal Server Error</h3>
        <h4>The requested page cannot be accessed because the related configuration data for the page is invalid.</h4>
    </div>
    <div class="content-container">
        <fieldset>
            <h4>Detailed Error Information:</h4>
            <div id="details-left">
                <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0">
                    <tbody>
                        <tr class="alt">
                            <th>Module</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;IIS Web Core</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <th>Notification</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BeginRequest</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="alt">
                            <th>Handler</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Not yet determined</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <th>Error Code</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0x8007010b</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="alt">
                            <th>Config Error</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cannot read configuration file</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <th>Config File</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\\?\UNC\sambaf\sites\MyDomain.com\public_html\umbraco\WebServices\NodeSorter.asmx\UpdateSortOrder\web.config</td>
                        </tr>
                    </tbody>
                </table>
            </div>
            <div id="details-right">
                <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0">
                    <tbody>
                        <tr class="alt">
                            <th>Requested URL</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;http://MyDomain.com.hostname.co.uk:80/umbraco/WebServices/NodeSorter.asmx/UpdateSortOrder?app=content</td>;
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <th>Physical Path</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\\sambaf\sites\MyDomain.com\public_html\umbraco\WebServices\NodeSorter.asmx\UpdateSortOrder</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="alt">
                            <th>Logon Method</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Not yet determined</td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <th>Logon User</th>
                            <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Not yet determined</td>
                        </tr>
                    </tbody>
                </table>
                <div class="clear"/>
            </div>
        </fieldset>
    </div>
    <div class="config_source content-container">
        <fieldset>
            <h4>Config Source:</h4>
            <pre>
                <code>   -1: <span class="highlight-code">    0: </span>
                </code>
            </pre>
        </fieldset>
    </div>
    <div class="content-container">
        <fieldset>
            <h4>More Information:</h4>   This error occurs when there is a problem reading the configuration file for the Web server or Web application. In some cases, the event logs may contain more information about what caused this error.   <p>
                <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=62293&amp;IIS70Error=500,19,0x8007010b,9200">View more information »</a>
            </p>
        </fieldset>
    </div>
</div>

Which is all a bit weird. I'll have another dig about later but thanks for the tip. I'll pass it on to the host - I don't think this is the reason as it works fine locally. More likely it is permissions? PS I have changed the domain names in the above snippet.

Solved!

See my post on https://our.umbraco.org/forum/umbraco-7/using-umbraco-7/46822-Unable-to-Re-Sort-Content-in-Umbraco-700#comment-225738

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