Hi,This is my first post, so I hope that I have picked the correct forum - it seemed the most appropriate.I am pretty green when it comes to SharePoint admin, but as it was going so well I got a bit over-confident and tried out the 'Alternate Access Mapping'. I didn't intend to save any changes, but I must have, because now under:Central Administration > Operations > Alternate Access Mappings > Edit Public Zone URLsthe 'Default' is "http://<myServer> : <port>"and afaik there was no setting there before. Unfortunately, I can no longer connect to http://myServer : port, although I can connect to the 'Central Administration' site on http://myServer : otherPort. Apologies in advance for the data dump below, but if anyone has any suggestions on what I could've done (or even better what I could do to fix it before tomorrow :-) I would be very grateful.Here are the errors that I saw/see in the browser: 1. Couldn't access intranetServer Error in '/' Application.Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine. Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".2. I changed the customError tag to RemoteOnly and then I got an error about parsing the web.config - somehow the first 't' in <System.Workflow.ComponentModel.WorkflowCompiler>had changed to a non-printable character.3. I changed the character back to a 't' and now I am getting: Server Error in '/' Application. Unable to read the security policy file for trust level 'WSS_Minimal'. 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: Unable to read the security policy file for trust level 'WSS_Minimal'.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. Stack Trace: [HttpException (0x80004005): Unable to read the security policy file for trust level 'WSS_Minimal'.] System.Web.HttpRuntime.SetTrustLevel(TrustSection trustSection, SecurityPolicySection securityPolicySection) +467 System.Web.HttpRuntime.HostingInit(HostingEnvironmentFlags hostingFlags) +239[HttpException (0x80004005): Unable to read the security policy file for trust level 'WSS_Minimal'.] System.Web.HttpRuntime.FirstRequestInit(HttpContext context) +3426887 System.Web.HttpRuntime.EnsureFirstRequestInit(HttpContext context) +88 System.Web.HttpRuntime.ProcessRequestInternal(HttpWorkerRequest wr) +149 Version Information:Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.42; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.42 There are also some errors in the EventViewer for "ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.42"1. EventID 1310 (this is the first error, and there are about 40 instances - I think up to the point that I fixed the 't' in the web.config)Event code: 3006 Event message: A parser error has occurred. Event time: 7/10/2007 6:05:38 PM Event time (UTC): 7/10/2007 5:05:38 PM Event ID: b7d52ad7e60e48a4800abda2591f2103 Event sequence: 1 Event occurrence: 1 Event detail code: 0 Application information: Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/1623012421/Root-39-128285607387561110 Trust level: WSS_Minimal Application Virtual Path: / Application Path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\myPort\ Machine name: myServerProcess information: Process ID: 7816 Process name: w3wp.exe Account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Exception information: Exception type: HttpException Exception message: Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1. Request information: Request URL: http://myServer:myPort/_vti_bin/sitedata.asmx Request path: /_vti_bin/sitedata.asmx User host address: <a.b.c.d> User: Is authenticated: False Authentication Type: Thread account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Thread information: Thread ID: 1 Thread account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Is impersonating: False Stack trace: at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.ReportTopLevelCompilationException() at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.EnsureTopLevelFilesCompiled() at System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.Initialize(ApplicationManager appManager, IApplicationHost appHost, IConfigMapPathFactory configMapPathFactory, HostingEnvironmentParameters hostingParameters)Custom event details: For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.2. EventID 1309 (this starts after the last of EventID 1310 and continues to the present)Event code: 3005 Event message: An unhandled exception has occurred. Event time: 7/10/2007 7:55:41 PM Event time (UTC): 7/10/2007 6:55:41 PM Event ID: b0693f5dc6fb41cbb1f37b29322b3fd9 Event sequence: 5 Event occurrence: 1 Event detail code: 0 Application information: Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/1623012421/Root-34-128285673385263722 Trust level: Application Virtual Path: / Application Path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\myPort\ Machine name: myServer Process information: Process ID: 5400 Process name: w3wp.exe Account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Exception information: Exception type: HttpException Exception message: Unable to read the security policy file for trust level 'WSS_Minimal'. Request information: Request URL: http://myServer:myPort/_vti_bin/sitedata.asmx Request path: /_vti_bin/sitedata.asmx User host address: <a.b.c.d> User: Is authenticated: False Authentication Type: Thread account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Thread information: Thread ID: 1 Thread account name: NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Is impersonating: False Stack trace: at System.Web.HttpRuntime.SetTrustLevel(TrustSection trustSection, SecurityPolicySection securityPolicySection) at System.Web.HttpRuntime.HostingInit(HostingEnvironmentFlags hostingFlags)Custom event details: For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Hi, The problem is fixed, so I thought I'd just leave the details here in case anyone else hits it. Basically it is much the same problem as identified in: https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1410970&SiteID=1 I also double-clicked on some XML files that opened in SharePoint Designer by default and although I didn't save them at least three of them were corrupted - some existing characters were changed to non-printing characters which (in the case of the error message above) meant that the path to the WSS_Minimal file was invalid (other problems that appeared after this which were also caused by character mutations to non-printing chars - including the one identified in the link above). So, the moral of the story is if you have an exception like this then you need to go through the XML config files with a fine-tooth-comb looking for any odd characters... Thanks, Risteard.

I realize this is an old post but I got this same error message today and although my solution was a bit different, this post helped point me in the right direction. I blew up my newly created development server that I built to mirror my SharePoint production server. I am also new to SharePoint admin. The problems started for me when I was trying to troubleshoot why an out of box approval workflow wouldn't work on dev server. I started messing with the web.config file. I also shrunk the SharePoint log files because they were getting too large. I am not sure which action caused my site to dissappear but the solution for me was to copy the current production web.config file to my development server. While I still got an error, the error was now more descriptive. It was looking for a WSS_Custom trust level settings in another config file so I copied several more config files over from production, that it referrenced and then the site reappeared. I thought I was going to have to restore the original database to fix the problem. So far so good. I know not everyone is going to have a backup web.config file for these types of situations but I think it points to a solution...the web.config file needed to be reviewed with a fine tooth comb like Risteard suggested. Thank you Risteard!! dms