Creating Files in Sitefinity API for docs that already exist on Filesystem - visual-studio-2012

Question

I am working with Sitefinity as a solution in Visual Studio 2012. I'm on a 64bit machine. I just installed Windows Identity Manager as I was getting another error before that and it was related to not having that installed. Now I am receiving this error:
Found invalid data while decoding.
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.IO.InvalidDataException: Found invalid data while decoding.
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:
[InvalidDataException: Found invalid data while decoding.]
System.IO.Compression.Inflater.DecodeDynamicBlockHeader() +6621162
System.IO.Compression.Inflater.Decode() +408
System.IO.Compression.Inflater.Inflate(Byte[] bytes, Int32 offset, Int32 length) +150
System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream.Read(Byte[] array, Int32 offset, Int32 count) +64
Microsoft.IdentityModel.Web.DeflateCookieTransform.Decode(Byte[] encoded) +396
Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens.SessionSecurityTokenHandler.ApplyTransforms(Byte[] cookie, Boolean outbound) +217
Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens.SessionSecurityTokenHandler.ReadToken(XmlReader reader, SecurityTokenResolver tokenResolver) +1958
Telerik.Sitefinity.Security.Claims.SitefinitySessionTokenHandler.ReadToken(XmlReader reader, SecurityTokenResolver tokenResolver) +44
Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens.SessionSecurityTokenHandler.ReadToken(Byte[] token, SecurityTokenResolver tokenResolver) +149
Telerik.Sitefinity.Security.Claims.SitefinitySessionAuthenticationModule.ReadToken(Byte[] sessionCookie) +520
Telerik.Sitefinity.Security.Claims.SitefinitySessionAuthenticationModule.TryReadFromCookie(SessionSecurityToken& sessionToken) +111
Telerik.Sitefinity.Security.Claims.SitefinitySessionAuthenticationModule.OnAuthenticateRequest(Object sender, EventArgs eventArgs) +95
System.Web.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +136
System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +69
I also followed the advice before and after this post and it did not work for me:
http://www.sitefinity.com/developer-network/knowledge-base/getting-type-is-not-resolved-for-member-microsoft-identitymodel-claims-claimsprincipal-exception
which is what led me to installing the Microsoft identity Manager. I'm not sure how to get past this issue.

Answer 1

There are bugs in Microsoft's DeflateStream implementation prior to .Net 4.5.
See here:
.NET [4 and previous] users should not use the Microsoft-provided
GZipStream or DeflateStream classes under any circumstances, unless
Microsoft replaces them completely with something that works.
This bug was never fixed by Microsoft for earlier versions of the .NET framework than 4.5
As for the difference between Firefox and IE - they might be interacting differently with IIS while using gzip compression, Fiddler might be able to tell you more about the differences in your situation if you look at the raw HTTP requests and responses. Check if the request sequence looks the same between browsers. My gut feeling is that Firefox is falling back to no compression and IE isn't, but without a test bed I won't be able to help further.
You could try these three solutions in increasing order of desperation:
See if you can change the app pool in IIS for the SiteFinity application and your .NET framework target inside Visual Studio to target .NET 4.5 where their GZIP DeflateStream method was fixed.
Attempt to disable GZIP compression in IIS for this application. Follow the instructions found here in reverse. I would try this last because there will be a bandwidth penalty for your server and all users, affecting the user experience.
Install the DotNetZip Library, and override Microsoft's implementation of System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream to call a compatible method that doesn't have the same bug.