Greetings!
I've run into an oddity with a custom master page on my SharePoint 2013 Enterprise server. I copied the html for the seattle master page, renamed it so it wouldn't change the seattle master, made an addition to it to add a reference to a custom css file, then threw it back up on the site so SP would make a new .master file with it. I created a new web app and site collection, put the custom css file in the Style Library and added the custom master page to the Master Pages.
So, all that being done, I changed the look of the top level site to use the new master page and it looks great and seems to be working as expected. We've got a number of subsites planned for underneath this top level site, I'm thinking no problem, just put the custom master file in the master pages and we'll be good. So I create a subsite, put the custom master page in the subsite's Master Pages, change the look. The master page and custom css apply and it looks good, but, then the problem starts.
When I go into a document library and change a view or add a view or delete a view I get back an odd response page from SP. In the url I see this: https://topsite/subsite/_vti_bin/owssvr.dll?CS=65001
and in the body of the message: 69|pageRedirect|owssvr|https://topsite/subsite/Shared%20Documents/Forms/AllItems.aspx|
When I go back into the subsite, whatever change I was attempting when I get these results worked fine.
So, why does my custom master page work fine on the top level, but not on the subsites? If I switch the subsite back to the Seattle.master, the oddity goes away, so that tells me it's something to do with my custom master page and/or custom css. I did some searching for owssvr.dll?CS=65001 and didn't see anything that helped. I checked IIS and the web.config file and don't have ASP.net tracing on that I could find.
All that the custom css is doing is increasing the size allowable for the site icon (.ms-siteicon-img) to allow for a larger icon (180px square) and it pushes the side Nav Box down a bit to make room for the larger icon and changes the font size for the side Nave Box (#sideNavBox). Since it works on the top site, I'm not suspecting the css, but, it's not making sense to me why the custom master page wouldn't work in subsites either.
I ran into this issue earlier, it was showing up when deleting folders from the document library. I thought I'd made a boo-boo somewhere in creating the custom master page, or how I'd added it, or something (kind of a learn as I go situation here), so I deleted the entire web app and recreated it, hoping for a clean start and a good master page and everything would be good. Guess I'm still missing something.
I swear that the ONLY change I made to the seattle html file for my custom page was to add this line just below the corev15.css line: <!-- SPM:<SharePoint:CssRegistration Name="/Style Library/skcustom.css" after="corev15.css" runat="server"/>-->
So, that's my sad story. Any suggestions, other than to punt on the custom master page?
Thanks!
Steven