Commerce Server Blog

Whenever I press “Refresh Site Cache” link in commerce server marketing manager, I get HTTP status code 401 error as shown below. Marketing manager recorded errors in the event log but those details are not helpful to troubleshoot the issue.

I installed fiddler tool to monitor HTTP traffic and surprising I found there are no entries coming into the tool which I click on refresh site cache link. I checked IIS logs and found something strange. Commerce server web services on my box are running under “Network Service” account and this account is also added to the authorization manager. Surprisingly the user name is not getting populated in the log file. When I tried to open the link http://cerebro/OrdersWebService/SiteCacheRefresh.axd?CacheToRefresh=AllMarketingCaches in the browser, IIS is able to write the logged in user name into log file.

What exactly happens when you click on refresh site cache? I assume, when the business tools calls to a page (SiteCacheRefresh.axd) which it internal calls all other cache pages. Somehow the web service is not running under “Network Service” account (blank user name is going to IIS)  I changed and domain account to different domain user (”Administrator”) then the cache started working. I am able to see the user name coming in IIS logs.

Lately I realized that Microsoft has released a work around for this fix. Click below link to get more details about this error.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931290