A few problems both programming related and IDE related

Question

Hi, Folks
I don't post often but I've got some things going on that I've spent more time trying to figure out and straighten out than it would have taken me to write a desktop app.
My first issues are with VWD 2013 Express. It's constantly throwing exceptions, crashing and losing my images. The only constant is that when firing it up I get an exception(or two) complaining about CSSStyles, etc. According to the logs, nothing untoward
has happened. The logs report success on everything. In addition, it will throw exceptions with me simply sitting there and not attempting any operations. On top of that, I can be looking at the source code for my Master Page and switch to Design View and
it's lost all the images. Closing out and restarting restores them but it's only a matter of time before it happens again. I've tried repair on it as well as uninstalling and reinstalling it to no avail. If I revert to 2012 none of this happens - at least
that I've seen so far.
In addition, there is something very off the wall happening. I have a side menu and a bottom menu controlled by separate XML files. The code follows:
The XML sitemap files look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<siteMap xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0" >
    <siteMapNode url="" title=""  description="">
        <siteMapNode url="~/About.aspx" title="About"  description=""/>
        <siteMapNode url="~/Contact.aspx" title="Contact"  description=""/>
    </siteMapNode>
</siteMap>
That one is for my bottom menu.
The side menu site map file looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<siteMap xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0" >
    <siteMapNode url="" title=""  description="">
      <siteMapNode url="~/index.aspx" title="Home"  description="" />
      <siteMapNode url="~/DotNet/DotNetApps.aspx" title="DotNet"  description="">
        <siteMapNode url="~/DotNet/CommercialApps/DotNetCommercialApps.aspx" title="Commercial Apps" description="">
          <siteMapNode url="~/DotNet/CommercialApps/DotNetDesktopApps.aspx" title=".NET Desktop Apps"  description=".NET Desktop Apps"/>
          <siteMapNode url="~/DotNet/CommercialApps/DotNetForexApps.aspx" title=".NET Forex Apps"  description=".NET Forex Apps"/>
        </siteMapNode>
        <siteMapNode url="~/DotNet/Demo Apps/DotNetDemoApps.aspx" title=".Net Demo Apps" description=""/>
      </siteMapNode>
      <siteMapNode url="~/FOREX/Forex.aspx" title="FOREX" description="">
        <siteMapNode url="~/FOREX/Commercial Apps/ForexCommercialApps.aspx" title="Commercial Apps" description=""/>
        <siteMapNode url="~/FOREX/Demo Apps/ForexDemoApps.aspx" title="Demo Apps" description=""/>
      </siteMapNode>
      </siteMapNode>
</siteMap>
On an active page the menus behave and look as they should. The relevant section of the Web.config file looks like this
 <siteMap defaultProvider="SideMenuSiteMapProvider">
      <providers>
        <add name="SideMenuSiteMapProvider"  type="System.Web.XmlSiteMapProvider" siteMapFile="~/web.sitemap" />
        <add name="BottomMenuSiteMapProvider" type="System.Web.XmlSiteMapProvider" siteMapFile="~/BottomMenu.sitemap" />
      </providers>
    </siteMap>
and the Master Page aspx code looks like this:
<div id="NavColumn">
                <div class="Liner">
                    <div class="ItemCenter">
                     <h4>Site Navigation</h4>
                    </div>
                    <div id="SideMenu" class="Navigation">
                        <asp:SiteMapDataSource ID="SideMenuDataSource" runat="server" ShowStartingNode="False" SiteMapProvider="SideMenuSiteMapProvider"/>
                        <asp:Menu ID="SMenu" runat="server" DataSourceID="SideMenuDataSource" SkipLinkText="">
                        </asp:Menu>
                    </div> <!-- end Navigation -->
                </div> <!-- End Liner -->
         </div> <!-- end NavColumn -->
        <div id="Footer">
            <div class="Liner">
                <div id="BottomMenu" class="ExtraNav">
                    <asp:SiteMapDataSource ID="BottomMenuDataSource" runat="server" ShowStartingNode="false" SiteMapProvider="BottomMenuSiteMapProvider" />
                    <asp:Menu ID="BMenu" runat="server" DataSourceID="BottomMenuDataSource" MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels="0" Orientation="Horizontal" SkipLinkText="">
                    </asp:Menu>
                </div> <!-- End of ExtrNav -->
                <br />
                <div class="ItemCenter">
                    <span>Copyright © 2014 White Wolf Custom Software</span>
                </div>
                <div class="ItemCenter">
                    <span>All Rights Reserved</span>
                </div>
            </div> <!-- End of Liner -->
        </div> <!-- End of Footer -->
It all looks like it should be good to go, yeah? Wrong. In the IDE the side menu looks right but the bottom menu displays the side menu items. This happens in both 2012 and 2013. If I run the site, everything shows up where it should and works as it should
- with one very major problem. I have a Contact Us page that accepts a user's info and sends an email to my site email. If the send succeeds, I throw up an alert from the server side informing the user that the email has been successfully sent. The problem
is that it seems to start a postback - which I can't see why throwing the alert up would trigger - and appears to get "stuck" halfway through and completely screws up the display. The side menu has slide out menus that are rendering laid over top
of one another and the "main" menu - which absolutely looks like crap - it's displaying all of them at once, which makes no sense. If I hit OK on the alert it appears to finish the "postback" and things are displayed the way they should
be.
If you would like to see what I'm talking about as far as the site behavior goes, check out http://www.whitewolfcustomsoftware.com, navigate to the Contact Us page and send an email message and you will see the behavior I'm talking about. I've been fighting
with this for a week and a half and finally decided it was time to run for some help. If anyone has any insights or suggestions I would be most appreciative. If you visit my site, you'll see that this is a serious business site. I have to get this figured
out and working correctly.
I will be most appreciative if anyone can steer me in the right direction. If I can't get this straightened out I'm going to make myself look like a fool by advertising myself as a custom developer.
Jeff AKA "Prof"

Answer 1

How is this related to Application Insights (AI)?
I didn't know exactly where to put this. None of the categorical choices seemed to fit. I expected that if this is wrong place for this someone would suggest the proper category - not get smart with me. As developers we should be here helping each other.
I've reposted this elsewhere . I would have simply moved it but I don't see a way to do that nor to simply delete the thread.
Sergei, you'll have to admit that the categorizations and sub-categorizations are a bit convoluted and don't always seem to reflect the spirit of the post you're attempting to make. Let's not get into a battle with each other here. I see no point to it.
Jeff AKA "Prof"