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"Could not instantiate control SharePoint:ProjectProperty" error message when you view a Windows SharePoint Services Web page

Article ID: 839048 - View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

After you edit a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services page by using Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003, when you view the page in a Web browser, you receive the following error message:

Could not instantiate control SharePoint:ProjectProperty

Web Parts Maintenance Page: If you have permission, you can use this page to temporarily disable Web Parts or remove personal settings. For more information, contact your site administrator.

For example, you may receive this error message after you edit the SharePoint Services default home page, and you remove much of the existing content.

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CAUSE

This problem may occur if the FrontPage 2003 parser removes a register directive from the page when the register directive is still referenced in the TITLE element of the page. Typically, the FrontPage 2003 parser removes a register directive from the page when it detects that the last reference to the register directive has been removed. However, the FrontPage 2003 parser only detects controls that are between the <body> tag and the </body> tag of the page.

In each of the list form pages, there are many references to the SharePoint:ProjectProperty register directive. One of them is the SharePoint:ProjectProperty control in the TITLE element. The parser does not detect this control because it is outside the BODY element. The parser does detect other SharePoint:ProjectProperty references that are between the <body> tag and the </body> tag. If you delete all the SharePoint:ProjectProperty references in the BODY element when you edit the page, the parser does not find any references to the register directive because it does not detect the SharePoint:ProjectProperty reference in the TITLE element. Therefore, the parser removes the register directive although a reference still exists. This action breaks the page.

Note A register directive is a reference to a control.

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WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, remove the reference to the SharePoint:ProjectProperty control in the TITLE element. To do so, follow these steps:

In FrontPage 2003, open the page that you want to fix.
On the View menu, click Page.
At the bottom of the document window, click Code.

Locate the line of code that is similar to the following:

<Title ID=onetidTitle>Home - <SharePoint:ProjectProperty Property="Title" runat="server" __Preview="Team Web Site"/></Title>

Edit the line of code so that it appears as follows:
<Title ID=onetidTitle>Home </Title>
Save the page.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section of this article.

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MORE INFORMATION

When the FrontPage 2003 parser parses a page, it looks for register directives that are not being referenced in the page and removes them. This behavior permits FrontPage 2003 to clean up a Web Part’s register directive when you remove Web Parts from a page.

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