Error - 'Maximum request length exceeded' when exporting search or report output to Excel

Description

When exporting the output from a search or other report to Excel, an error is reported in the Triaster Browser Toolkit application. On a client PC, this is likely to be a generic error message, offering little information other than the identity of the web application. On the Triaster server, a more detailed error message would be expected.

Server Error in '/Triaster Browser Toolkit 2011/Search' Application.

Maximum request length exceeded.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Web.HttpException: Maximum request length exceeded.

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

etc.

Solution

If the problem is specific to one web application, this configuration change could be applied to just it. The example above identifies the 'Search' application, and indeed, this is the only context in which this error has been reported, at least to date. The solution described will use that application as its example, but it could equally apply to others. The 'maxRequestLength' attribute of the 'httpRuntime' node is increased from its default of 4 MB to 15 MB (the value is in KB). If this does not resolve the issue, it may need to be increased further.

1. In Windows Explorer, navigate to:

Triaster\TriasterServer2011\BrowserToolkit\Search

2. Open web.config in Notepad (or preferred text editor).
3. Search for </system.web> (the end of the system.web section).
4. Insert the following line (assuming that system.web/httpRunTime does not already exist):

<httpRuntime maxRequestLength="15360" />

above </system.web>.

5. Save and close the file.