Why is publisher publishing part of the first page, then quitting?

[Brooke]

Hi, I'm using Publisher 2003 and having trouble updating my site. It's
worked fine in the past, but last night when I tried to republish my site to
the web, all went fine until the box opened up that is supposed to show the
progress made. Before any progress could show, Publisher became unresponsive
for a minute, then put up a box saying, "Publisher could not save the file to
the web. Check your URL or network connection and try again." I went to check
my site out online using several browsers, and now all it shows is a blank
white page and nothing else. I emailed tech support for the hosting company I
use (ecomplanet), and they told me it looks like Publisher is only publishing
the top quarter of my home page (default.htm) and then quitting. They took
that page out for me and put another of my pages in as a placeholder, and
told me to try publishing the correct default.htm page again, and if
successful, all should be back to normal. I tried to republish the site
again, and the same thing happened. I tried disabling the incremental
publishing feature, but that didn't work.

I also noticed that when previewing my site, the bottom navigation menu
doesn't seem to work, but I didn't change anything with that and it's always
worked before, plus by doing the Ctrl+click thing in Publisher it works fine,
and the design checker isn't finding any problems except lack of alternate
names for my pictures, which shouldn't be a big deal, right? I also noticed
that when I turn off the incremental publishing feature and go to "My Network
Places" to click on the correct folder, Publisher is telling me the file name
or extension is invalid, and even if I try to click on the top drop down menu
in the dialogue box it says the same thing. However, if I click on "Modify
FTP locations" and retype my password, etc, it lets me into the FTP folder
(or I can just click "okay" rather than retyping the password, so I know the
saved password is correct), but even then it freezes and gives the error
message mentioned above while in the process of saving to the web. I thought
about trying to save it as "index.htm" rather than "default.htm," but am
afraid that since I know very little about web publishing it could make
things even more confusing if it doesn't work right. Does anyone have any
suggestions? I'm out of ideas... Thanks!

-Brooke

 

[DavidF]

Though it might be several things, Publisher uses 'index.htm' as the default
page...not 'default.htm'. Perhaps you misunderstood your tech support. If
they have renamed your index.htm file, then it might be that you will need
to delete that file from the server, and/or delete all the files, and do a
fresh upload of the site.

But first, my guess is that you have some object that is overlapping the
document area into the scratch area...perhaps the bottom navigation menu,
which would explain why it doesn't work, and your upload chokes. If that
isn't it, then here are a series of articles by David Bartosik about
troubleshooting your uploading problems:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/articles/category/1921.aspx

DavidF

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash\)]

If Publisher can only publish the index page as index.htm then Brooke should
have her host change the default home page from default.htm to index.htm.


| Though it might be several things, Publisher uses 'index.htm' as the
default
| page...not 'default.htm'. Perhaps you misunderstood your tech support. If
| they have renamed your index.htm file, then it might be that you will need
| to delete that file from the server, and/or delete all the files, and do a
| fresh upload of the site.
|
| But first, my guess is that you have some object that is overlapping the
| document area into the scratch area...perhaps the bottom navigation menu,
| which would explain why it doesn't work, and your upload chokes. If that
| isn't it, then here are a series of articles by David Bartosik about
| troubleshooting your uploading problems:
| http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/articles/category/1921.aspx
|
| DavidF
|
| | > Hi, I'm using Publisher 2003 and having trouble updating my site. It's
| > worked fine in the past, but last night when I tried to republish my
site
| to
| > the web, all went fine until the box opened up that is supposed to show
| the
| > progress made. Before any progress could show, Publisher became
| unresponsive
| > for a minute, then put up a box saying, "Publisher could not save the
file
| to
| > the web. Check your URL or network connection and try again." I went to
| check
| > my site out online using several browsers, and now all it shows is a
blank
| > white page and nothing else. I emailed tech support for the hosting
| company I
| > use (ecomplanet), and they told me it looks like Publisher is only
| publishing
| > the top quarter of my home page (default.htm) and then quitting. They
took
| > that page out for me and put another of my pages in as a placeholder,
and
| > told me to try publishing the correct default.htm page again, and if
| > successful, all should be back to normal. I tried to republish the site
| > again, and the same thing happened. I tried disabling the incremental
| > publishing feature, but that didn't work.
| >
| > I also noticed that when previewing my site, the bottom navigation
menu
| > doesn't seem to work, but I didn't change anything with that and it's
| always
| > worked before, plus by doing the Ctrl+click thing in Publisher it works
| fine,
| > and the design checker isn't finding any problems except lack of
alternate
| > names for my pictures, which shouldn't be a big deal, right? I also
| noticed
| > that when I turn off the incremental publishing feature and go to "My
| Network
| > Places" to click on the correct folder, Publisher is telling me the file
| name
| > or extension is invalid, and even if I try to click on the top drop down
| menu
| > in the dialogue box it says the same thing. However, if I click on
"Modify
| > FTP locations" and retype my password, etc, it lets me into the FTP
folder
| > (or I can just click "okay" rather than retyping the password, so I know
| the
| > saved password is correct), but even then it freezes and gives the error
| > message mentioned above while in the process of saving to the web. I
| thought
| > about trying to save it as "index.htm" rather than "default.htm," but am
| > afraid that since I know very little about web publishing it could make
| > things even more confusing if it doesn't work right. Does anyone have
any
| > suggestions? I'm out of ideas... Thanks!
| >
| > -Brooke
|
|

 

[DavidF]

I wasn't as clear as I should have been. Publisher's default "home page" is
named index.htm by default (index.html in Pub 2000 and older), though you
have the option of naming a page whatever you want during the 'Publish to
the Web' part of the process. Furthermore if she is using the 'organize
supporting files in a folder' option, then all the other pages and images
are in a subfolder called "index_files". This folder would automatically be
named "default_files", if she named her home page "default.htm" during the
publishing process. So, yes, if her host renamed her "index.htm" file to
"default.htm", you could be right. However, it is very unclear to me what
they did and given she has also turned off and on the incremental publishing
feature, that means that the "index_filelist.xml" file on her site is also
probably "out of snyc", in terms of controlling what "new" pages to upload.

With your comments, I am more convinced that she should delete all the
Publisher files from her site, and do a fresh upload, and let Publisher use
the default naming convention...after she figures out what made the upload
process choke to begin with. Personally I think that is good practice in
general with Publisher, unless your site is so large as to make this
prohibitive. But then that is why they added the incremental publishing
feature...

DavidF

 

[Brooke]

Hi - First, let me explain a bit futher what the situation is with my
homepage's name. When I first created the website, the host suggested that if
my software had a preference, to publish the site as "default.htm," so that's
what I did. That's why it's default.htm rather than index.htm. Everything
seems to have been okay until just recently, when I tried to republish the
site.

Second, I hate to admit it, but I have no idea what the terms "document
area" and "scratch area" mean. Does this mean the navigation bar may need to
be moved? Or that a text box may be infringing on the navigation bar or
something? There is a text box within the navigation bar that I added with
copyright notices and I tried moving it out and republishing the site, but it
was to no avail, plus my site was published before with that stuff in there,
so they weren't recent changes. I still can't figure out why the links on the
bottom navigation bar aren't working in the "preview website" feature, as I
doublechecked them and they are all set up correctly so far as being linked
to the right pages, etc., and as I said, doing the "ctrl+click" thing in the
main publisher document takes me to the right page. I'm pretty sure they were
working before, so I'm not sure what would have made them quit, as I didn't
make any changes to the navigation bar this last time. I also tried deleting
and re-creating the FTP address that I save to, but I still get the same
results when trying to publish. Thanks for the input so far... I checked the
link you gave but didn't find anything to help yet. Any more ideas? Thanks!

-Brooke

 

[DavidF]

Brooke,

The document area is the work area on your Publisher document...where you
put your text boxes, images and other design elements. The scratch area is
the gray area around the page...around the work area. You can drag design
elements off your page into the scratch area and they won't be included on
your page when print or publish your page. If your have any page
element...text box, image, navbar, etc, extending off the document area into
the scratch area, Publisher can choke when you try to Publish, do a web
preview...or even print the document. The design checker is supposed to find
these problems but in my experience can miss them. Study each page you have,
especially your home page, and make sure nothing is encroaching the scratch
area.

As per your navbar not working, make sure no part of it is in the scratch
area, and move the overlapping text box containing your copyright notices to
somewhere else. Its possible that by overlapping the text box, Publisher is
converting the two elements into an image, which would prevent the links
from working. In general you should use the "Snap To" function under Arrange
to avoid overlapping. Now try the web page preview, and see if that fixes
it.

While I am at it, make sure you are not using a Master Page. This also
creates problems with Publisher web pages.

As per the file naming, though "default.htm" might very well have worked in
the past, and might in the future, I think you would be less likely to have
problems if you let Publisher name the home page "index.htm". I also think
you should delete the old files on your host and start fresh. You said you
could access your files on your web space, so go there and delete the old
"default.htm" and/or the "index.htm" file(s), the folder "default_files"
and/or "index_files" and the "index_filelist.xml" file or perhaps it will be
named "default_filelist.xml". Don't delete files or folder that your host
may have put there...just the Publisher generated files and folders.

Then I would suggest that in Publisher go to Tools > Options > Web and
uncheck "Enable incremental...", "Rely on VML...", "Allow PNG...". This will
allow you produce the cleanest, fastest loading and the least error prone
code. Save the changes. Do a web page preview, and if everything works, then
try to upload your new files.

DavidF