Dev > QA > Prod = broken

Hi all.
We are trying to deploy our DEV to our QA environment but we are facing issues. 
We are using SF 5.1, and our DEV works exactly as we want it to.
To Sync to our QA environment, we first copied our custome code we have created in VS.NET 2010 from DEV to QA, then we run the Staging & Syncing option from the Administration menu - we tried both options with same result.
Once synchronized, the site get's all kind of errors.  Some of the OTB widgets like the breadcrumbs are broken and we need to revisit each template to replace these broken controls.  Also, once replaced, the breadcrumb starts by a "NULL" text before the actual breadcrumb...(see attached image).
To create the sites (DEV and QA) we used the Project Manager, and we created sites with names like DEV-SiteName and QA-SiteName.  Could this be the issue?  Do we need to have distinct names or do they need to be the same?  When we are ready for production, can we rely on the Project Manager to create the shell four our new site, and then do the sync?  How?  Restore DB then sync? ...

Thanks for you help.

Yes, I remember seeing that "null" in 5.0. I just went into the Editing options for the Breadcrumb control and made the field blank. That got rid of it. Not nice though to have it appear like that by default. I am glad I was able to get rid of it. Not a clue about teh rest though.

Hi Andrei.
Thanks a lot for the information.
Actually, what is weird is that in our DEV environment, if I go in the properties of the BreadCrubms, the label reads "null" also...
Anyway, I removed it from our QA templates, and it corrected the issue.
...but the other issues are still there - we have sync problems between DEV and QA.
Do you know if the projects need to be named exactly the same, or if they must be diffent, or if it does not matter?

Thanks again - you save me a lot of trouble...but it is still anoying.

Hi Olivier, You could try this free Site Sync module - http://www.sitefinitytools.com - its features are constantly being upgraded and its issues are corrected very quickly

Olivier,
I don't use the synching functionality so I have no clue about it. One thing I would do is not rely on it completely, but have a back-up plan as well. I usually restore the database, or if no content has been changed, then just upload the files to the production. Of course, I first replicate the system and test the upgrade well before doing that. Have you been through their Documentation, you might find something there. Sorry that I can't help any further.
Andrei

Liam and Andrei.
Thanks for the replies.
I haven't had a chance to try the Free Site sync module, but will do for sure.
In the mean time, I have had some more information that helped me correct the issue.
What we did for QA is install a fresh new SiteFinity application, and then tried to sync from DEV to QA.  Wrong!
What worked is that I took the DEV DB, restored in QA, copied over the complete DEV site over QA, and changed only the connection string in the DataConfig.config file.  From then on, the Breadcrumbs and all the other features work.

Thanks both of you for your help.
Olivier