Problems publishing with Front Page 2003

[PeggyMundell]

I am having a couple of problems posting pages with Front Page 2003.

Actually, posting the pages works just fine, so I know that I have things
like the URL I’m publishing to and the id/password right.

The problem is that Front Page gives error messages along the way indicating
there are problems which aren’t actually happening!

I have used WS_FTP and older versions of Front Page in the past with no
problems.

Here is how I am using Front Page 2003...

I have the publishing set up to use FTP. (I don’t have the Front Page
extensions turned on for this website because turning them on would disable
some other things I want to do.) I have chosen these options: “Use Passive
FTP†(because of our firewall), “Changed pages only†and “Determine changes
by comparing source and destination sitesâ€. I have “Include subsites†turned
off.

When I want to publish files, I do this
- Click on Remote Web Site at the bottom of the window
- Give the id and password for the website
- Choose “View: Files to Publishâ€
- Select the files to publish (typically all of them but sometimes there are
pages still being updated which should not yet be published)
- Pick the right-pointing arrow (between the pane for my computer and the
pane for our website host) to publish the selected files from my computer to
our website host

Here are the problems I am encountering

1. When I am in views other than “Files to Publishâ€, all the files in my
website are marked with a large graphical question mark in front of the file
name and with “Conflict†after the file name. This is true for both
published files and files recently updated but not yet published. The only
files which aren’t marked that way are the ones marked “Unmatched†because
they are new and as yet unpublished. I tried updating every file in the
website and using Front Page 2003 to republish all of them, but these
problems are still there.

2. When the publishing is done, I get an error message saying “Could not
find a Web server ...†But the publishing of the pages was in fact completed
just fine. I can use WS_FTP to verify that, and of course I can verify it by
linking to the published pages.

3. When the publishing is done, the new files I published are still marked
“Unmatched.†I’ve tried doing Tools – Recalculate Hyperlink to no avail.
I’ve also tried using F5 to no avail. If I exit Front Page and restart it,
the files I just published are now marked “Conflict†like the old files.

4. Finally, there is a problem which may be just an irritation or may be
the cause of some of the other problems. When I use WS_FTP to publish my web
pages, I can give the time offset between my PC and the website host so that
the date/time shown for the files on the website host is in my time zone. I
can’t find a way to do that with Front Page, so when I look at the files on
the host they appear to have been posted 4 hours later than they actually
were. For instance, I updated a file this morning and Front Page correctly
shows that its date/time stamp on my computer is “10/1/2005 7:51AMâ€. A
couple of minutes later, I published that file and the date/time stamp on my
website host is “10/1/2005 11:54AMâ€. So far what I’ve described is just
irritating. But then if I switch from “Determine changes by comparing source
and destination sites†to “Use source file timestamps to determine changes
since last publish,†every one of the website files on my computer is marked
to be published. That makes no sense, since both the apparent date/time
stamps and the actual time of publishing means that there should not be any
files to be published.

I don’t want to use WS_FTP to publish these pages because I’m setting this
up for someone else to use and I would like the whole process to be seamless.

I don’t want to use the Publish icon in the Front Page toolbar because
sometimes there will be pages in the process of being updated which we aren’t
yet ready to publish.

Help! I’m feeling like I just can’t trust Front Page to do this publishing!

Can anyone help? Thanks!

 

[phil]

Hi Peggy

I'm not an expert with Front PAge 2003 but I notice you say you're using an
ftp program.

This in itself can cause problems.

First of all - you need to check that your host can accept Frontpage
extensions. Then you need to publish the pages using the Frontpage program
itself.

Hope this helps.

 

[Andrew Murray]

Comments in Line

I am having a couple of problems posting pages with Front Page 2003.

Actually, posting the pages works just fine, so I know that I have things
like the URL I'm publishing to and the id/password right.

The problem is that Front Page gives error messages along the way
indicating
there are problems which aren't actually happening!

I have used WS_FTP and older versions of Front Page in the past with no
problems.

Here is how I am using Front Page 2003...

I have the publishing set up to use FTP. (I don't have the Front Page
extensions turned on for this website because turning them on would
disable
some other things I want to do.) I have chosen these options: "Use
Passive
FTP" (because of our firewall), "Changed pages only" and "Determine
changes
by comparing source and destination sites". I have "Include subsites"
turned
off.

[ I believe not *all* the FP publish features are available for FTP mode. ]

When I want to publish files, I do this
- Click on Remote Web Site at the bottom of the window
- Give the id and password for the website
- Choose "View: Files to Publish"
- Select the files to publish (typically all of them but sometimes there
are
pages still being updated which should not yet be published)
- Pick the right-pointing arrow (between the pane for my computer and the
pane for our website host) to publish the selected files from my computer
to
our website host

[ Have you tried just pressing the "Publish" button in the bottom right hand
corner? That should publish all changed pages.]

Here are the problems I am encountering

1. When I am in views other than "Files to Publish", all the files in my
website are marked with a large graphical question mark in front of the
file
name and with "Conflict" after the file name. This is true for both
published files and files recently updated but not yet published. The
only
files which aren't marked that way are the ones marked "Unmatched" because
they are new and as yet unpublished. I tried updating every file in the
website and using Front Page 2003 to republish all of them, but these
problems are still there.

["Conflict" indicates the server file version is older (or newer) than the
local copy....I don't know the ins and outs of "Conflicts" - I just ignore
it.]

2. When the publishing is done, I get an error message saying "Could not
find a Web server ..." But the publishing of the pages was in fact
completed
just fine. I can use WS_FTP to verify that, and of course I can verify it
by
linking to the published pages.

[ Sounds like periodical hiccups with your web/FTP server.]

3. When the publishing is done, the new files I published are still
marked
"Unmatched." I've tried doing Tools - Recalculate Hyperlink to no avail.
I've also tried using F5 to no avail. If I exit Front Page and restart
it,
the files I just published are now marked "Conflict" like the old files.

["Unmatched" means there's a file on the local machine which is not on the
server, and vice versa.]

4. Finally, there is a problem which may be just an irritation or may be
the cause of some of the other problems. When I use WS_FTP to publish my
web
pages, I can give the time offset between my PC and the website host so
that
the date/time shown for the files on the website host is in my time zone.
I
can't find a way to do that with Front Page, so when I look at the files
on
the host they appear to have been posted 4 hours later than they actually
were. For instance, I updated a file this morning and Front Page
correctly
shows that its date/time stamp on my computer is "10/1/2005 7:51AM". A
couple of minutes later, I published that file and the date/time stamp on
my
website host is "10/1/2005 11:54AM". So far what I've described is just
irritating. But then if I switch from "Determine changes by comparing
source
and destination sites" to "Use source file timestamps to determine changes
since last publish," every one of the website files on my computer is
marked
to be published. That makes no sense, since both the apparent date/time
stamps and the actual time of publishing means that there should not be
any
files to be published.

[ I assume the "time" is based on wherever the server is located. Unless it
is in the same time zone as you, it's going to show the local time. What is
the issue with knowing the time the file was uploaded?
Frontpage obviously uses times/dates to determine old/new files, but it
doesn't care if the server is in London or Albeqerque.

Some of the things you've mentioned *may* require the Server Extensions
(which you've said you can't use) to report accurate information - I don't
know.]

 

[robm]

Peggy,

I'm struggling with the identical issue. After upgrading from FP2002 to
FP2003, I consistantly get 'unmatched' file indication on a certain number of
my webpages. I've tried every solution I've seen posted to the various
newsgroups and the problem persists. I've uploaded my entire site from local
to remote, tried re-syncing the websistes, Published from the remote to a new
local directory, deleted the specific pages from the remote and resent them
to the remote, etc. etc. I'm now spending my time trying to figure out what
the 'common thread' is in the pages showing this status.

One interesting thing I did see was that if your in the local/remote
publishing window and you hit the small refresh icon (at the top of the local
site window), the arrows and unchanged status go away (temporary only).

Robm

 

[robm]

I actually found an old post out there today that seems to point to
conditions leading to this issue and in my case at least, it proved true.

If the webpage had any lowercase characters in the first part of the name,
the unmatched condition occured. For example, I had a web page named
about.htm which consistantly showed an 'unmatched' status. I renamed the
file to ABOUT.htm and theissue resolved itself for that page. By the way, it
does'nt appear that case is releveant in the file name extenstion (.htm).

Anyway, that seems to be the issue. The solution, other than renaming all of
my webpages, is still a question.

Robm