The Ghost in the machine
I was having loads of fun getting a "borrowed" web service running on the staging server yesterday.
As with all code that you take without asking, there are always.. shall we say, "hiccups". Apparently every line in the web.config conflicted with the root web.config. And not in a nice way.
Hack. Slash. Keyword/Value pairs flying everywhere in a mad frenzy.
Then, it worked! w00t!
I clicked around the site checking it out, and then it stopped working.
YSOD.
Insufficient permission. ???
I looked in IIS and there it was, no anonymous access to the web service folder. I was sure I'd set that. Oh well...
Sure enough it starts working again. A few pages later..you guessed it!
I check IIS. No anonymous access.
Now, I'm thinking should I google this bizarre behavior? It's almost like someone is on the server undoing my changes.
Check the calendar - nope, not April 1st yet. (although now I have some great ideas guys 
)
Then I remember..I had put in a ticket to NetOps earlier in the day about this server. The ghost was Rick, in there changing permissions to investigate. We were basically fighting over the permissions without realizing. 
So, Rick, this morning I shall be fixing my permission problem again. Pleasedon'tundoitthankyouverymuch.
ASP.NET 3.5 Web Hosting: 3 Months FREE + FREE Setup - CLICK HERE!