You try to open a site in SharePoint designer but are not able to do so. Well, there can be two major reasons for this to happen. I blogged about the first one some time ago. If you have not created a site collection first and you try to open it in SharePoint designer, it will throw following error:
Server error: The URL “http://server/_vti_bin/_vti_aut/author.dll” is not contained within a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Site.
Again, this error occurs if you have created a web application but have not created site collection yet and you try to open it in designer.
Figure 1: Server error
Second reason SharePoint designer fails to open a site is that there are two sites bound to the same port. Extend the application and create new IIS site and then open with SharePoint designer, it will now open. The problem is that if IIS has more than one binding then site will not open with SPD. Check IIS. If there are two sites bound to the same port the site will not open. Simply shutting down one site will NOT resolve the problem. You have to extend the application to the new IIS port.
There is a possibility that you will see sites and folders in designer now but clicking them will not open them. Again, the solution is to extend your site to a port other than port 80. Port 80 is the default port and have binding to default site. If you can somehow remove existing bindings, you may use port 80 as well but I haven’t tried it.
Server error: The URL “http://server/_vti_bin/_vti_aut/author.dll” is not contained within a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Site.
Again, this error occurs if you have created a web application but have not created site collection yet and you try to open it in designer.
Figure 1: Server error
Second reason SharePoint designer fails to open a site is that there are two sites bound to the same port. Extend the application and create new IIS site and then open with SharePoint designer, it will now open. The problem is that if IIS has more than one binding then site will not open with SPD. Check IIS. If there are two sites bound to the same port the site will not open. Simply shutting down one site will NOT resolve the problem. You have to extend the application to the new IIS port.
There is a possibility that you will see sites and folders in designer now but clicking them will not open them. Again, the solution is to extend your site to a port other than port 80. Port 80 is the default port and have binding to default site. If you can somehow remove existing bindings, you may use port 80 as well but I haven’t tried it.
