DNN help states the following procedure for adding a second parent portal:

1. Navigate to the Host > Portals page.
   
2. In the Portals module, click Add New Portal located at the base of the module.
   
3. At Portal Type, select Parent.
   
4. At Portal Setup, complete the following fields:


5. In the Portal Alias field, enter an alias for the site (e.g. http://www.byte.com.au/).
   
6. In the Home Directory field (optional), click Customize and enter the new location for the site's home directory (relative to the DotNetNuke installation root directory).
   
7. In the Title field, enter the name of the site (e.g. Byte Information Technology).
   
8. In the Description field, enter description of the site (e.g. Byte’s Corporate Web Portal).
   
9. In the Key Words field, enter the key words to be associated with the site (e.g. Byte, Information Technology, DotNetNuke, DNN).
   
10. At Template (optional), select a DotNetNuke template from the drop down list.

I  followed the procedure and to the customization of the Home Directory, I added "demo"

I used a template that I created and the installation went fine.

When I logged into the new site, I am having issues with Free Textbox:

FreeTextBox has not been correctly installed. To install FreeTextBox either:
(1) add a reference to FtbWebResource.axd in web.config:


path="FtbWebResource.axd"
type="FreeTextBoxControls.AssemblyResourceHandler, FreeTextBox" />



(2) Save the FreeTextBox image and javascript files to a location on your website and set up FreeTextBox as follows

I had the same issue when adding a child portal. It seems the problem occurs when you customize the Home Directory.

Can somebody add some insight???  Has anybody had success with adding parent portals or should I just keep adding seperate sites???

TIA
Robb

Yes this is indeed a problem with FTB and customizing the home directory. I have a single installation now running customized directories and I hope I am not going to hate myself for it later. Currently only 9 sites without any issues

I am however no longer using FTB. I have purchased both the RAD and Cute editors and have not had any issues with the RAD editor. As a matter of fact the installation that is using custom directories is running the RAD editor and it could not be going more smoothly.

I my opinion, if you are using DNN for anything other than hobby or free sites you need to get yourself a good editor as the FTB is, well, lets say "limited"

My recomendation goes to RAD.