Getting ASP.NET error "Invalid postback or callback argument" when refreshing reports on the Notification Server Console

Products

• IT Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

Getting ASP.NET error when refreshing reports on the Notification Server Console:

The following error occurred on the page 'report_summary.aspx':

"Invalid postback or callback argument. Event validation is enabled using in configuration or in a page. For security purposes, this feature verifies that arguments to postback or callback events originate from the server control that originally rendered them. If the data is valid and expected, use the ClientScriptManager.RegisterForEventValidation method in order to register the postback or callback data for validation."

Cause

A bug in IIS. If a particular type of .asp page is requested before any .NET based page (.aspx, .asmx, and so on) after startup (from the same IIS application pool), then IIS will choose the latest available version of .NET for compiling. It will ignore the assignments made in the IIS metabase file. You can use aspnet_regiis -lk to display the current assignments.

In this situation, it's common for the Altiris agent to call the postevent.asp page, which triggers the problem.

Resolution

There is a known intermittent IIS bug (avoided with the installation of Notification Server 6 SP3 R7) that results in the same error message. See article 19599, "Invalid postback or callback argument."

Applies To
Notification Server 6.0 SP3 R6