Asp.net error messages when on server are not displayed

I have been tasked with setting up asp.net websites on a windows server 2008 which are all in debug mode

When browsing a website on the server and an error occurs, for example the database connection cannot be open I would expect as per normal to receive the Asp.net Server error page with an error dump

Something like - http://www.codeproject.com/KB/books/1861005040/image091.gif

However, what actually happens is I get random characters on the web page. For example: <֟)=����*��2o����v��YK�WuZ,�6[N��f�O��b��@!���u]S��yQ�iN�&e�̋�E���j��1z��x����˼�o�y����U֤˪Mϫ��2d�i�4

This is not the correct or expected behaviour. The event log does however show what has gone wrong.

How do I get the Server Error page to render properly, am I missing something in the servers asp.net setup?

From serverfault asn187

• Do you have a Custom Error page for ASP.NET configured in IIS, either globally, for the site, or the Virtual Directory?

  asn187 : Yes I do, it redirects to it on the application_error event in the global.asax. But I have disabled that functionality to get the asp.net server error page to show on the server. Thanks for the suggestion but I dont think this is to do with the page error not rendering.
  From mfinni

• Maybe it's an issue with compression. Try to disable compression (web main page, IIS section) in order to see if the error page renders correctly.

  Another guess is that there's something wrong with in the character set setting (.NET Globalization in the ASP.NET section).

  asn187 : I disabled both compression options within iis7 - no luck there. The .net globalization is as it should be - UK English (en-GB).
  From splattne

• Are you seeing the same thing in other browsers? Could be your browser settings perhaps?

  From Kurosaki