I've run across a few ASP.NET based issue tracking tools. Here's a list of the best ones I found:

  • Gemini [CounterSoft]
    This is a lightweight, but powerful issue tracking tool. It has a very simple install, and a free license option (up to 10 users, and only on an internal server). The full enterprise license is just $280. I set this up at Assisted Solutions and Data Research Group, and they have been very happy with it thus far. It has a few quirks, but supports all the main functionality needed in an issue tracking tool.
  • Dragnet [SourceGear]
    Dragnet is SourceGear's entry into the issue tracking arena. It's got a prettier interface than Gemini, but as far as I can tell, doesn't have a whole lot more functionality. And the price is sky high, comparatively, at $129 per user. I use SourceGear's Vault system for source control, and have been very satisfied with that, so it would seem that Dragnet would be high quality, and continuing to develop in features. But is it really worth the price premium? Perhaps Eric Sinkcan weigh in with more information on that.
  • BugTracker.NET [free]
    This is a free bug tracking system in .NET. Looks interesting, and still fairly active after several years of development
  • Issue Tracker Starter Kit [free]
    There is also, of course, the Microsoft Issue Tracking starter kit.
  • BugNet [free]
    Another free bug tracker.

With the amount of free or cheap bug tracking tools, it's hard to justify having one not set up. In team development, it's invaluable. For individual developers, it's still a great tool to keep track of customer issues and todos.

If anyone has a favorite bug tracking tool, definitely drop me a comment and I'll add it to the list. And if you want a more in depth review, let me know.

UPDATE: wikipedia has a fairly exhaustive grid of bug tracking systems.

UPDATE: another list of bug tracking systems

I just spent half an hour diagnosing an issue, and was about to give up when I finally solved it. I wanted to save anyone else out there the time.... I just installed VS 2005 RC1 to start playing with .NET 2.0 in earnest, specifically to ensure SlickUpload compatibility. Lo and behold, when I tried to run a 2.0 website in IIS, I get this big red "Server Application Unavailable" error, with a pointer to the event viewer. When I looked in the event viewer, this is what I saw -- "Failed to execute the request because the ASP.NET process identity does not have read permissions to the global assembly cache." I fiddled around with the GAC a bit, found out that I needed to unregister SHFusion.dll to be able to set permissions, made sure the permissions were set, and still nothing.

The fix? ASPNET didn't have permission to the application directory. As soon as I gave it permission, viola, it worked. Why can't Microsoft finally start using error messages that actually make sense? Arrgh.