Lost navigation when testing on one Web Front-End server taken off Load balancing?

Question

Last week we experienced a phenomenon which didn't make sense (to me). We have an environment with one SQL Server and two Web Front-End servers in the Farm. Upon deploy one WFE were removed from Load balancing, and the other served all the web requests.

We deployed successfully, and browsed the web server through IP-address and port. All looked fine, but on some pages, the JavaScript based navigation didn't work. The script tag was there, but didn't load correctly. There are no apperent differnce to tha failing pages and other working pages.

But when we logged in to the site and hit the failing page as a logged in user, the navigation came back. The strange part is that when we had hit the page as a logged in user, the navigation also came back as an anonymous user on a differnt computer. There could not be a client cache, since we used a different computer the second time.

Why do we lose navigation when testing on one Web Front-End server taken off Load balancing? And subsecuently, why does it come back after hitting the page as a logged in user?

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Related Question: Removing a Web Front-End server from Farm (Load Balancing)

Answer 1

Did you checked and updated your AAM accordingly - very important to keep these updated!! If you used FQDN before and you pass to IP-based navigation requires to update AAM. When removing the server, did you actually remove it from Farm or just remove it from the Load Balancing?

Try using the Configuration Wizard when removing server from farm.

C:\Marius