Forms Malfunctioning

[com693]

Installed FP extensions to the main site, then installed them to a few subdomains that I want them running on as well.

 

The domain is decats.org, and a sample domain with a form that isn't functioning correctly is at http://nominate.decats.org

 

The form displays, and when I fill it in and submit, I get a page that informs the user to contact the webmaster and for the webmaster to see the server's system log.

 

Here's what it says in the log:

 

[Wed Jul 27 21:56:36 2005] [error] [client 208.191.169.233] File does not exist: /home/jnkumwe/public_html/_vti_bin/shtml.exe/_vti_rpc

[Wed Jul 27 21:56:36 2005] [error] Incorrect permissions on webroot "/home/jnkumwe/public_html/_vti_pvt" and webroot's _vti_pvt directory in FrontPageAlias().

[Wed Jul 27 21:56:36 2005] [error] [client 208.191.169.233] File does not exist: /home/jnkumwe/public_html/_vti_bin/_vti_aut/author.exe

[Wed Jul 27 21:56:36 2005] [error] (11)Resource temporarily unavailable: Incorrect permissions on webroot "/home/jnkumwe/public_html/_vti_pvt" and webroot's _vti_pvt directory in FrontPageAlias().

[Wed Jul 27 21:54:18 2005] [error] [client 208.191.169.233] File does not exist: /home/jnkumwe/public_html/_vti_bin/shtml.exe/_vti_rpc

[Wed Jul 27 21:54:18 2005] [error] Incorrect permissions on webroot "/home/jnkumwe/public_html/_vti_pvt" and webroot's _vti_pvt directory in FrontPageAlias().

[Wed Jul 27 21:54:17 2005] [error] [client 208.191.169.233] File does not exist: /home/jnkumwe/public_html/_vti_bin/_vti_aut/author.exe

[Wed Jul 27 21:54:17 2005] [error] (11)Resource temporarily unavailable: Incorrect permissions on webroot "/home/jnkumwe/public_html/_vti_pvt" and webroot's _vti_pvt directory in FrontPageAlias().

 

I've tried adjusting some of the folder permissions and reinstalling FP extensions, both to no avail.

 

Any ideas why the form isn't working?

 

Thanks,

 

JM

[com693]

Oh my ...

 

I forgot a cardinal rule in FP.

 

Delete this topic if you can ... problem solved! Sorry to bother.

[TCH-Don]

If you don't mind

you could post the problem and solution

for other family members to learn from.

[com693]

No problem, Don. Good idea.

 

I have several forms created with FrontPage. With my move to TCH, I now have the ability to create subdomains, etc, use then in FP, and have them work on the Internet by going http://xxx.decats.org. I've never been able to do that, so it was exciting.

 

In the past, all of my pages had resided in one web, the main site web.

 

I created new subdomains and copied and pasted the forms pages into the correct subdomain ... so I moved forms that had to do with our "Nomination Process" into the Nominate subdomain, and so forth.

 

However, when I moved these pages, FP did NOT revise the URL for the file that the forms results were saving to.

 

When you move pages into a deeper folder in FP, it usually adds ../ to the front of URLs to files that exist higher up in the web (if you follow me). When you move pages to a subweb (or put pages in a folder and convert it to a subweb), it may or may not delete the ../ that references that CURRENT web.

 

So, what was happening with me is that I moved these form pages into a subdomain in the web, and the form results file URL still looked like ../_private/2006nominations.txt when it should have just said _private/2006nominations.txt so that it would be referring to the text file IN that subdomain. You cannot refer to files in the main domain through URL unless you use the full URL (http://xxx so forth).

 

It's a lot ... I know ... and it was a little bit of a booger to figure out. Also, I went ahead and saved a blank 2006nominations.txt file to the _private folder so that FP would see that the file already existed and would just append form results as they were received. Usually FP will automatically create the file if it does not exist, either when you open and save the forms page or when you submit data through the form. I didn't check to see if FP would automatically do that ... at that point I was just trying to get it to see the file and save the form results, that was the most crucial problem.

 

Hope this helps, though I doubt someone will have a case like this.

 

I've been using FP for nearly 8 years ... I never should have made a mistake like that!

 

Take care.

 

JM

[TCH-Bruce]

Thanks for the explanation. I'm sure it may help someone down the road.

[TCH-Don]

Thanks JM,

its always nice to see a nice explanation of a problem and fix.