Very slow checkout

[jonwilliams]

Hi

My site (http://www.globaholic.com) is almost ready to go. It's not the fastest of sites anyway, but I have noticed the checkout process is exceptionally slow.

Is there anything I can do about this?

Thanks
Jon

[Kris]

Your best bet (what I would do) is to change hosts.. it seems very slow on this connection (512 Broadband).

I would recommend either:

Virtual Internet www.vi.net
One and One www.oneandone.co.uk

Other than that, I would get on the phone to your hosts and ask them why its so slow, it maybe that your sharing a server with a very busy site etc.

Better speaking to your own hosts first.

Thanks,

Kris

[jonwilliams]

Thanks for the advice Kris. I have indeed asked the host to comment and will see what they say. I am loathe to change as in every other respect they are very helpful, so hopefully they will come up with a solution.

Cheers
Jon

[garyhay]

Is it a Windows server

[jonwilliams]

Yes, it's a windows server

J

[garyhay]

Hmm It always is. Can your host give you unix space

[jonwilliams]

Yes they can - does it make a lot of difference?

One unhappy side effect I believe is that various contact forms etc on the site which use ASP will not function - I'd have to redo them in PHP (with which I am not familiar) - is that right? (Perhaps a small price to pay if the speed issue is helped considerably)

Thanks
Jon

[Kris]

From experience (with my own hosts with other sites) Unix servers tend to give increased performance and speed when compared to shared windows hosting.

Please realise though, that if the poor performance is coming from your hosts network, bandwidth or server specification, the speed increase might not be that great... but you should notice some speed increase regardless with Actinic on a unix box.

Just my $0.02 :)

Regards,

Kris

[pinbrook]

you can get ASP on a UNix server......it server needs chillisoft installed

[jonwilliams]

Thanks - I will see if they have/will install this.

Cheers
Jon

[garyhay]

but you should notice some speed increase regardless with Actinic on a unix box.

I would say a great increase in speed

[Jenny]

I have a site on a windows platform that has now decided to fall over with hhtp header error pages, 502 Bad Gateway error, cgi time outs. It has been working for months and now it has been playing up for days.. I would change it to a unix server but the guy has just paid £250 (not to ) for his affiliate software to be re-installed .. Any other suggestions.
Jenny

[ditch]

I've had similar problems with speed in the past and I changed hosts and still experienced slow speeds.

There was a slight problem with something in Actinic, I can't remember what it was (it was about 12 months ago), but when I changed it my site was a lot faster.

Are you using extra javascript or dhtml etc. in your checkout pages?

[jonwilliams]

My host tells me that they are planning to move everyone over to Unix soon anyway and will be using Apache ASP not chillisoft, so I will have to lose the ASP forms probably and learn PHP, which is a bit of a pain cos I'm still learning ASP!

Ditch - no I don't have anything funny in the checkout pages, at least nothing that's not in all the pages using Act_Primary, like the javascript for the drop-down menu and customer login.

Any ideas what to do for the best? As far as I can see I should either

1. move to Unix and use php for the forms
2. see if Actinic come up with anything to solve a potential Actinic/Windows problem
3. Change hosts to another Windows host and see if that helps.

Your views appreciated.....:confused:

Jon

[garyhay]

I think steve at Harlequin hosts Actinic on NT and its set up correctly

[Jenny]

My problem site is with a New Envisage Microsoft window server and not with my older Windows servers.
Jenny

[jonwilliams]

Worldpay just contacted me - they experienced a CGI/incomplete http headers error when making a test purchase. Need to get this resolved before the site can go live.

Any ideas Chris/anyone?

Jon

PS Away now till late Monday - time to forget the problems for a while.....;)

[cdicken]

My suggestion is to test the site out on some alternative webspace. Do you have any other web space you could try posting a sample site to?

[Jenny]

yes, I have lots of alternative space but just not the catalog itself. my customer updates that part I do the rest.. The site is www.paws4petfood.co.uk/acatalog
It is a site I have adopted.
Jenny

[Jenny]

This is my technical support reply

<<<As I have not been able to replicate any of the errors on the site, I can only guess that you have been getting timeout errors, these type of errors can occur on windows servers as the cgi timeout has to be set very strictly. These errors can happen from time to time and is due to the way the actinic scritps are written. We have been in communication with actinic on this and there only solution was to set the cgi timeout to 900 second which is totally unacceptable and would cause the server to be very quickly overloaded and unresponsive.>>>

This site has been working correctly for months. I will put all other sites on linux server but that does not help me now!
Jenny

[cdicken]

Jenny

I just tried it this morning, and it was a bit slow but nothing terrible. It certainly would not put me off shopping at the site. Has anything changed on the site in the last few days?

[Jenny]

it starts to getslow, then the http header errors and timeouts start appearing left right and centre.. It worked perfectly Saturday morning when nobody was surfing and now it's slow again. Must be the server!
Jenny

[jonwilliams]

Just got back from weekend away. Do you think changeing servers will solve things for me too Chris? I do not have alternative space at the moment but can easily look at this if this is the cause of the problem?

Thanks
Jon

[cdicken]

The answer is a definite maybe - and I cannot be any more specific than that.

There are a huge number of factors which can affect the speed of the site - number of sites on the server, version of Perl, operating system etc. etc. People have generally found that Linux is much faster at running Actinic stores than Windows, but this is mainly because Linux is much better at handling Perl than Windows.

The whole of your site is pretty slow, slower than it should be, so I think there is an issue with your web server not giving you enough resources.

One thing you could do to speed up the checkout is have less images in there, as there will then be less for the Perl to do.

[jonwilliams]

Thanks Chris - I will check out the options.

Jon

[I-CC]

Your problems could one of many different things, the server itself, i.e. windows, the nework, load, available memory on the server or the number of hops occuring to reach the server.

You might want to visit this page: http://amail.co.uk/youget.htm periodically and conduct a check of your domain to see the times you get, you could possibly then keep a logs/graph dependant on day/time to see if you can see a pattern with when the problems occur and then pass this to your host maybe.

Just an idea..

[garyhay]

Chris, John and others

When I asked my former ISP to look into this for me it appeared that the scripts just never returned the memory to the system.

If you buy once it will be slow but bearable but if you buy again or another shopper buys it will be slower and slower etc...


They (the isp) were quite happy to lose our custom on any Actinic sites as they could see the difference the U/Lix box made?

[jonwilliams]

Thanks all. Having spoken to my host at length, I am going to move over to Linux. There are a few ASP forms I will have to re-write (having to learn PHP in the process) but this is a small distraction and one I am more than willing to endure if it means big improvements in site performance.

Just a thought: should Actinic be more up front in their literature etc about the performance advantages of Unix over Windows for Actinic sites? A recommended configuration etc.... Might help prevent issues like this arising, and if relative newbies like me know in advance they should ask for Unix hosting, then they have no real reason that I can see not to go for this.

Cheers
Jon

[I-CC]

To be perfectly honest, it is not down to just simply Linux being better than windows, it is down to how that windows server is set up and settings within it so that it is optimised and of better use for Actinic users.

Windows (apart from being the cause of all the pasts major Internet congestion situations from hacked servers) is a good OS to host Actinic sites on, it is just that more Linux hosts than Windows hosts achieve good Actinic provisioning.

In effect, there is nothing stopping you from having a good Windows host compared to a Linux host so long as they operate the server for Actinic use and its memory / Perl usage.

IMO

[jonwilliams]

Yes, in fairness to Actinic, my host is planning to run down and close their Windows servers due to the cost of licensing MS products, and so were keen to move people to Unix anyway.

J

[pinbrook]

Ask your hosts about chillisoft, you won't have to learn PHP then and can run your exsisting ASP pages

[I-CC]

Chili 3.6.2 features:

One-hundred percent pure Active Server Pages support: Sun Chili!Soft ASP supports the most common and frequently used ASP standards, such as ASP 2.0, VBScript 3.2, and JScript 3.2. You can easily deploy new or existing ASP applications with few or no changes to code.

In effect by using a Linux Chili ASP will mean very little if any alteration to your code.

v4 from SunOne includes the ASP 3.0

[jonwilliams]

They say they will be using Apache ASP which in their words "is not Chilisoft I'm afraid" so still advise re-coding to PHP. What can you tell me about Apache ASP?

J

[I-CC]

Basically, Apache ASP provides an Active Server Pages port to the Apache Web Server with Perl scripting only.

It is an ongoing development and not fully compliant with ASP 2.0 let alone the other normal featues.

This link will give you the low down: http://www.apache-asp.org/index.html

[jonwilliams]

Hi - Latest installment in the saga...

I have changed the site over to Unix and although the home page seems a little faster, I can't get beyond the first page - none of the pages are found. The network setup wizard tests everything OK, and the relative paths look ok to me. I have pasted my network settings below - anybody see anything obvious?

Thanks again.

Jon

HTTP Proxy: direct

FTP Proxy: direct

FTP Server: ftp.globaholic.com
User: globaholic
Password: ******
Path to the CGI-BIN Directory:
/cgi-bin/
Path from the CGI-BIN Directory to the Catalog Directory:
/httpdocs/acatalog/

Catalog URL: http://www.globaholic.com/acatalog/

Codebase: ./

CGI-BIN URL: http://www.globaholic.com/cgi-bin/
Perl Location: /usr/bin/perl
CGI Script Extension: .pl
Path from the CGI-BIN Directory to the Catalog Directory (as viewed from the CGI Script):
/home/httpd/vhosts/globaholic.com/httpdocs/acatalog/
CGI Script ID: 1

Mail Server: smtp.freeserve.net
Email Address: sales@globaholic.com

[garyhay]

have you changed the permissions

[jonwilliams]

no, the permissions are set to execute & read for public. is that right?

J

[jonwilliams]

Changed the path from cgi-bin to acatalog to a relative one and now it works. :D

Checkout is nice and quick now too - so thanks for the Unix advice.

Still getting "done, but with errors on page" messages though

Cheers
Jon

[Jenny]

It seems that there is a problem running Actinic/perl scripts with the new windows Microsoft Envisage servers and they are trying to fix it (time scale unknown). My client's site is now so unreliable but has been ok till now, probably due to an influx of other sites on the server, making it ok one minute and not the next.
Jenny

[wfl]

We are having problems with perl on a W2003 server.

At the moment we are running on a W2003 box with old perl. It is better but not brilliant. Our ISP has an outstanding tech call in with Microsoft to try and resolve.

We went for Windows because Actinic V6 will not run on unmodified PERL on Unix and our ISP has issues with modifying perl on their Solaris boxes.

[Jenny]

Is anyone running a V6 site on "Envisage Linux which is based on the latest Redhat Linux web-servers running Apache web-server." Any problems?
Get desperate probably will have to move my site but the affiliate software they have is still holding me back.
Jenny

[I-CC]

Originally posted by Alistair
We are having problems with perl on a W2003 server.

At the moment we are running on a W2003 box with old perl. It is better but not brilliant. Our ISP has an outstanding tech call in with Microsoft to try and resolve.

We went for Windows because Actinic V6 will not run on unmodified PERL on Unix and our ISP has issues with modifying perl on their Solaris boxes.

What sort of modofications were you told would need to be done on your hosts unix servers for Actinic to operate properly?

Not disputing the statement that they may have to modify some settings etc, but modifying perl itself to run Actinic seems a bit extreme.

[wfl]

The original thread that describes the problem is here;

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=8603#post8603

We are lead to understand that there are some Actinic add ins for perl required for V6 on Unix but we heard around Telehouse that these are causing memory leakage.

V6 certainly doen't run on a vanila flavoured Sun Solaris box.

V6 worked fine on W2003 until we started asking it to do any work. Now we get a lot of scrip errors including the http header error mentioned elsewhere.

Whilst we are still working on the W2003 box we are also looking at a couple of different W2K boxes.

BTW I hear there is a fairly big patch coming from MS for W2003 this weekend.

[I-CC]

Ahhhh right, Sun Solaris is different from Linux and yes under Solaris you would need to plug some holes... But Linux in general should not be a problem if set up correctly to start with, which to be honest is the same for windows servers.

[Sly9er]

About your speed issue:
I am currently having the same issue with one of my clients.
I wrote into Support and they replied with some tips to give
to my clients hosting service.

( I wish they would just host with me. I have tested my Unix
servers and Actinic is fine with my servers, anyway....)

Here are the tips that Support gave me, to give to my clients
web hosting service:
( But I think their hosting service's pride got bent a little. Ha ha!)
----------------------------------------------------------------
There is little I can change to effect the performance of the site. If
your running on a shared hosting environment you are sharing server
resources with multiple web sites. So your problem is most likely that your
hosters has many sites on the server and not enough resources to cover the
sites needs. Your hosters may need to increase the memory on the hosting
machine. decrease the number of sites running on the machine.

My suggestions are to see if you can increase the amount of memory that the
Perl resources use. Also, check whether 'Digest-MD5' is installed on your
server by opening a command line on the server and typing ppm install
Digest-MD5

This is assuming your web host is using ActivePerl - you will need to check
with them about this.

It may be a week or more before I get to load your
acd file to our machine for testing, Sorry but were very busy and your
problem is 90% a problem with your host. Once I get a few minutes to test
in our environment I will write you back with our findings. You may also
want to consider moving your hosting to a collocated server or a new
hosters.


The actual site itslef seems to be running OK, it is just when it is running
scripts. It definately looks like a hosting issue here.

They are running scripts, check that the hosting company has 16mb of RAM to
run the scripts.

Ask are the perl modules loaded into RAM on the server, or are they accessed
of the disk each time. If they are accesed off the disk, then the result
will be slow running.

Ask if there is bandwidth throttling enabled? If there is, get the host to
relax this a little. The same applies to CPU throttling.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also Jon,
If you need some help with setting up some cgi scripts for a
Unix server. IE: Customer service, Recommend Us, etc.
Let me know.
I have developed several scripts for my clients that work
very well

Keep in touch :)

[jonwilliams]

Thanks John - appreciate the tips.

I have now changed to my hosts Unix servers and (when the site is working - see below) the speed issue seems a lot better.

However, I now get messages that there are errors on the pages that load (annoying but not critical), but more critically most of the pages beyong the home page can't be accessed at all more than half of the time - I just get a url not found message. It's wierd - sometimes they are there and sometimes not.

I can't put the site live until these problems are sorted as I have already had Worldpay tell me the site has too many problems once, so this issue is now holding up my income generation!

I am not a professional web designer although I have a copy of Developer - I have several retail concepts I want to launch - so although I know my way around html etc quite a bit for an amateur, it is quite possible that I have mucked something up somewhere.

The wierd thing is that these problems did not exist on the Windows server, where it was only the speed issue that caused a problem. Is Unix less tolerant of JavaScript mistakes for example - I have lots of "extras" e.g. drop-down section lists, login bar etc etc.

Should I still talk to my hosts about the topics you raised John - do you think my current problems may be to do with the servers ability to execute perl scripts, or are your points only relevant to the speed issue?

Thanks

Jon

[wfl]

Jon

There shouldn't be any issues about java script as this is executed on the client and not the host.

The problem looks to be in the directory paths and file names.

It looks as if the path from /cgi-bin to /acatalog is wrong.

In Advanced>Network Setup have you tested your set up? There should be no errors here.

Do you have an FTP browser that you can see where the folders are on your site and how they have been named. Generally both /cgi-bin and /acatalog should be off the root.

The files you have hard coded are indeed in the /acatalog folder but Actinic uses *.html and you have used *.htm

[jonwilliams]

Alastair - thanks. Yes, I thought the paths were not right. When I first noticed this problem in a post on this thread a couple of pages back, I thought I had solved it by changing the path from the cgi-bin to the acatalog directory to a relative one as this seemed to do the trick. But I don't think I have changed anything since and now it doesn't work. Yes, I have FTP (Leech) and the cgi-bin and acatalog directories are both off the root. The network setup test worked OK last time I tried it. I have pasted the current settings below. (One question - should the "Use relative CGI-BIN URLs in Catalog Pages" box be checked cos it isn't currently?)

Cheers
Jon

PS Thanks for noticing the .htm extensions - these were two non-catalog pages which I had hard-coded on the footer bar, and I hadn't even tested those links!

Network Settings:

HTTP Proxy: direct

FTP Proxy: direct

FTP Server: ftp.globaholic.com
User: globaholic
Password: ******
Path to the CGI-BIN Directory:
/cgi-bin/
Path from the CGI-BIN Directory to the Catalog Directory:
/httpdocs/acatalog/

Catalog URL: http://www.globaholic.com/acatalog/

Codebase: ./

CGI-BIN URL: http://www.globaholic.com/cgi-bin/
Perl Location: /usr/bin/perl
CGI Script Extension: .pl
Path from the CGI-BIN Directory to the Catalog Directory (as viewed from the CGI Script):
../httpdocs/acatalog/
CGI Script ID: 1

[wfl]

"Use relative CGI-BIN URLs in Catalog Pages" probably doesn't need to be ticked in your case.

Did your ISP tell you to use /httpdocs?

If not that may be where your problem is.

On many unix boxes everything is relative to the site root whereas on Windows it is relative to the account root and you have to confirm the http folder.

Also have you tried leaving "Path from CGI...." blank or using just ./.... not ../....

[jonwilliams]

The host told me that /httpdocs was the root, and I think this was picked up by the network settings wizard anyway, but I will check. I will try your other suggestions too (will have to be this evening) and see if anything changes.

Thanks for your help

Jon

[jonwilliams]

OK.....

/cgi-bin/ and /httpdocs/ are directories off the root. /httpdocs/ is where I was told to put uploaded files, and /acatalog/ is a suddirectory of that. I tried to create an /acatalog/ directory off the root rather than as a subdirectory of /httpdocs/ but it won't let me do that.

Is the cgi-bin URL of http://www.globaholic.com/cgi-bin/ correct given the above?

I tried Alistair's suggestion of leaving "Path from CGI...." blank but that doesn't seem to have made any difference.

The wizard wouldn't let me put ./ instead of ../

Any ideas?

Thanks
Jon:confused:

[wfl]

Well Jon

It works now 20:46

There is a syntax error somewhere at the top of each page in line 2

[harlequin]

i wish i had saw this post a lot earlier...it's the windows lover here and if ANY of you require high class windows hosting i can set you up with test accounts (usually, i have over 20 spare with full SSL's ready to go)

thanks to gary for mentioning on the first page of this post that we have a correctly configured windows setup...

also i agree wholeheartedly with the above comments that windows runs actinic very well when configured correctly.

im not slinging any mud here as i havent had time to read through this post thoroughly and i can only speak in my own experience but generally the only time we have had issues with speed is when our hosting providers servers were too busy/incapable of handling the sheer amount of traffic our sites generated. (a nice note for actinic here is that most actinic sites just keep getting busier, not least because of their good handling of the search engines with cleanish html code and nice text nav links etc)

we now (after LOTS of tears, grief, wasted time, unfulfilled promises, and downright lies!) co-locate and maintain our own enterprise class servers with one of the most expensive bandwidth providers in the uk, but boy are they worth it... The truth is this, they make good money from their bandwidth so they go all out to make sure i can use as much of it as my greedy little sites want.

i think there is a definate point i am making for choosing companies nowadays to host / provide services that are MAKING them money, the old 'unlimited bandwidth', 'unlimited sites' etc etc unlimited everyting for £10 per month isnt realistic, companies doing that need to put many times more sites on their servers to just break even....we (and a whole breed of new companies) on the other hand have costed our hosting / services to ensure we make some money on them without having to put too many competing sites on one server.

i know this is a shameless plug for my own company, but, heres the issue, i LIKE windows for many reasons....and i have had to PERSONALLY delve into all the issues here, im not just relying on third party information to speak.

I did actually thrown down a challenge to any *nix host (in fun) to put the same test website up on their servers and mine, and get them tested for speed etc anytime of the day, no-one got back to me about it, chicken unix lovers.... pah!

I would genuinely be delighted to find a Unix/Linux host that could prove their servers were faster than my windows ones, it would spur me on to optimising my servers more and could be a positive thing for all concerned (and finally disprove this nonsense that *nix handles actinic better !)

However until someone accepts the challenge i respectfully submit that until PROVEN and or at least I am challenged, that Harlequin Domains are the fastest actinic host in the game, and its all thanks to Billy Gates on his luvverly windows server software.

hah

Steve Quinn
Harlequin Domains
www.harlequindomains.com
0800 0832077
Specialist Design, Hosting and Marketing for Actinic Software

PPS. IMPORTANT

as ever, i have read through now and have one more hugely important issue for you all to consider whilst you are thinking about hosting.

If the search engines, google in particular are of interest to you then you should know and be careful about where you are hosting your website geographically.

Google has recently moved to a model whereby if your website is hosted outside of the uk, it will not get listed in google.co.uk

i will post up some more info and links about this, but its real.
Already, we have a client who is stuck hosting in the states and he has now dropped completely from google.co.uk....

we did warn him of this two months ago but he is the only one who refused to do anything about it, maybe he doesnt bother with the engines so much....but its something you all need to consider as i noticed 1 and 1 being mentioned before as a good host which they are, just if you host with them you will not get onto google.co.uk because their datacentres are outside of the uk..

i may be completely wrong about 1 and 1, but the message is, if you want to appear on googles uk search engine, then host your site in the uk

I WAS just going to say that google are blocking all unix hosted websites but even im not that cheeky / provocative
steve ;)

[Sly9er]

I guess we all know that harlequin loves window's servers now.
To bad about that latest virus that attacked several windows
servers, of which one company was the ever popular BMW.

Why is it that every time a new virus is made public, it seems
to be attacking windows servers?

I guess if your not worried about security, or hackers that hate
Bill Gates, you should go with windows, ( notice that I never
capitalize "windows". Hee hee :) ). But for myself, I prefer to
have a secure website that hackers have not been able to
penetrait for the last 3 years. I also prefer to keep my business
out of a fight between all the hackers in the world and Bill Gates.

Bill never did anything to me personally, but if he attracts trouble,
I would rather not be a part of it.

[harlequin]

hi there, i agree with what you are saying, well, actually i dont...

I guess if your not worried about security,

the overwhelming majority of windows virus's that are released are capable of executing payload only because the admin of the machine hasnt kept up to date with freely available patches. Dont get me wrong, i am not inviting every hacker to have a go...that wouldnt be good..but i am pointing out that if you actually remove all problems that are created by people not patching windows machines, then you are left with actually very few....and even less that are actually ever exploited.
But for myself, I prefer to
have a secure website that hackers have not been able to
penetrait for the last 3 years.
I know plenty of webhosts who had untold trouble last week with the sendmail virus/vulnerability on linux servers..DOS attacks anyone? my mate who works for a linux host spent almost a week deleting mail from his spools caused by this virus..which simply used an exploit from a widely used script..AND brought down an entire data centre for a day....thanks guys, yes we suffered because of your unpatched linux machines....but no-one makes a big fuss about that....

the thing with billy gates is, (not unreasonably) everyone hates him and publicises his problems, everyone (reasonably) loves the idea and concepts behind open source software so therefore plays down the associated problems.

I also prefer to keep my business
out of a fight between all the hackers in the world and Bill Gates.

i have commented about this before in a long chat with gary hay in the v4 forum, http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2330 and in a nutshell, i would rather keep my business out of an intelectual property dispute between SCO and the linux community.

in short (my opinion) is that when all the screaming and pontificating is over, that IBM did indeed nick some code they shouldnt have, and that is indeed the code that helped Linux make the critical leap to becoming a multi processor capable and therefore a contender in the webserver stakes.

IBM's repeated mantra, and that of well heeled know it alls is that SCO's case is rubbish and should be thrown out...bit difficult that then when IBM had to come out and admit that SCO DID indeed have the rights to this, signed for by IBM;s chief exec...pah..the handbags are swinging....

everyone seems to be really down on SCO for taking the line of trying to re-negotiate licences for linux, but let me ask you this, what makes them different to you and me, after all, if IBM negligently allowed or even worse instructed their engineers to use code they know they shouldnt have, arent they plain and simple theives? 'IBM wouldn't do that, would they?' Nah, suppose you are right, big corporates dont steal each others secrets and work in a dishonest manner now do they? Come on.

Should we all really rally to IBM's defence because they have the special 'shield of open-source'? in their armoury...no, if they are proven thieves, they are proven thieves....if not, then you linux guys can breathe safe until the next company finds out that THEIR code has been lifted and 'used' in linux...

It is a curious situation and not one i wholly understand at best but in the event its proven that ibm misappropriated proprietary code and trade secrets then somehow in american law, the people who continue to use ibm's software, once warned of this infringement become liable themselves....nervous? you should be..the implications for the end user such as yourself is fully paid for and licenced linux driving your costs up...who knows, microsoft may even become known as the bargain software if linux gets too expensive...

my personal second problem with linux/open source is that, ANYONE (and that includes criminals) can contribute ANY code to the open source movement...therefore making it insecure by definition (just not as exploited and hated as windows)

AH BUT i hear you cry, 'all the major linux vendors have thousands, well, hundreds of coders working on their o/systems' and that is true...

last time i checked redhat server edition came in at around £700 plus vat and Windows server around £400...errrr..i thought it was cheaper..

AH BUT you paw at me, 'At least when i have installed my shiny linux 'webserver' edition software, all the software i put on afterwards is free!' and hoorah again you are/can be correct..BUT i paw back, isnt all that free open software subject to my concerns about anyone being able to contribute it? And doesnt it therefore make a mockery of Commercial Linux verndors attempts to secure their o/s

RIGHT you little upstart you say ' we bought a secure distro of linux, and we use paid for (for 'paid for' read 'accountable') commercial ftp, smtp, email software etc....but i counter with, 'then this all seems a little expensive and not really different to windows at all...' in fact, is it really cheaper to go linux...

you punch my nose and the lights go out.... :D

I awake with one question still burning on my mind, IF you can answer the questions i pose, AND linux doesnt significantly cost more to run, then IS it actually faster than Windows like for like and if so, where can i get one?

i enjoy your comments because if i am misinformed, where else can i learn my errors...please honestly dont think i am being flippant or nastily sarcastic about the issues here, or that i am a snotty little sod, i must admit i rely on the actinic forums to provide respite from the linux loving luvvies who bombard me with rubbish every time i post a windows question elsewhere, and also commercially i am sticking up for the platform of choice for my company...

PLEASE NOTE: if you ever dare say ANYTHING about Actinic, i will come and punch YOUR nose because i love Actinic far, far more than microsoft... :D

errr...better get on and build some sites now...oooppsss...

legal note: the above does not constitute a real and physical threat of violence, more was a reference to the imagined scenario mentioned above that where you, the reader, punched my nose...hahahahh

[harlequin]

see alastairs post above where he references http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=8603#post8603 AND bearing in mind you are still having trouble after your 'egged on' move to unix, i suggest again that unix isnt a bed of roses some people would have you believe, if you want i can trawl the forums and come up with hundreds more problems you people have with linux/unix servers everyday, almost as many as windows...unix is defintately not the god of everything and shouldnt be blindly followed..

In future, to avoid rash decisions based on misinformation, if anyone who runs an actinic website on a windows server, (brothers!) who needs a quick test account to upload to offsite of their normal server just give me a quick call..ill let you use one in an emergency although probably only for a day or two, this can usually tell if its just your existing hosts setup that is causing problems or if it replicates itself on our server then you may indeed have a problem with windows or actinic and we can all go windows bashing together...

but john, something that confuses me about your comments above is that i just noticed you are offering windows hosting, why do you offer it ?

I guess if your not worried about security, or hackers that hate Bill Gates, you should go with windows, . But for myself, I prefer to have a secure website that hackers have not been able to penetrait for the last 3 years. I also prefer to keep my business out of a fight between all the hackers in the world and Bill Gates.

It seems strange that you offer windows hosting? Surely you dont sell something you truly believe to be insecure and must be causing you lots of extra maintainence to stem the flood of attacks and deal with the mopping up after attacks coming at the win servers you have?

:confused:

Steve Quinn
Harlequin Domains
www.harlequindomains.com
0800 0832077
direct 01524 69466
Specialists in the Hosting, Design, Customisation, Search Engine Optimisation and Marketing of Actinic websites....thats all we do..

[Sly9er]

Simply because I don't have the time to write out replies as
long and rambling as harlequin has put out.

I give up H.

All I'll add is that I have worked extensively on both Unix
and windows platforms. And have found Unix to be more
flexible in the scripting world. Although I do love to work
with ASP.

Bye for now H

[harlequin]

apologies for the long posts but i touch type and its a curse sometimes.

i would have hoped that you thought my comments were more thought provoking or at least worthy of response than simply rambling and patently not worth addressing.

hey, on your preferences, each to his own, im just trying to stimulate open minded, balanced, factual discussion....i sincerely hope i havent spoiled the party.

but the guy who started this post was simply urged to swap hosting and had to relearn php (not a bad thing at all) whereas he may well have simply had to change to another windows host, not wholescale go down another untested route for himself.

i notice, with no happiness that his site is still not working at all...

was this the easy life on a unix server...forgive me for asking.

as you point out, we are all pushed for time......and his troubles started a month ago...

john @ globaholic, if you are still struggling we can help out even temporarily whilst you find another host, i hate to see a site down and i know its frustrating for you.

we simply do not accept problems such as you are having by the looks of things..

steve

[Sly9er]

The intitial suggestions I gave you probably won't have
anything to do with your java problems.

But it's probably good that your seeing these errors now.

You may not have seen them before, but maybe on your
machine(s) only.

Your customers might have been seeing them on their PC's
the whole time, if your site was live.

I am actually quite busy, but if you give me some specific
issues you are having, I will take a look for you.

Lord knows I have been through the learning curve with
Unix (and windows.... Harlequin. ha ha ha!!! )

So let me know if I can be of any assistance.

PS.
Harlequin,
It's good to have someone to shoot the breeze with.
Please don't be offended by anything I have said. And
don't stop being yourself either. It's actually quite the
trip to read your posts.

[wfl]

Can we get back to the subject now?

[harlequin]

thanks, im sorry if i get a little precious about my choice of servers, they are like my little babies, really, i am quite odd indeed..

steve :)

[Sly9er]

:(

[harlequin]

and im sure your love for your servers is deep... ooopsss sorry alistair for continuing on..

alastair, im sorry if you think this is off subject and getting in the way of something more serious, but the fact remains, the original guy asked for help and his website still appears to be crippled 1 month he was advised to jump ship...

im outta here..unless i can be of any use...im not hard to find..

steve

[pinbrook]

I don't think the issue over whether a server is windows or unix is the over riding issue here. It is how the servers are managed.

As Steve says there are many cheap and cheerful hosts out there with unlimited everything. These hosts are a lottery, normally everything is ok until it goes wrong, then it is a nighmare.

the ones that charge abit more are normally the ones who have realistic charges and will still be running servers in a year or so,

The point about UK hosting for UK sites is a valid one, I too have pulled sites in from US hosting in order to get UK SE listings.

if you have a com domain name and US hosting, you will not get into UK SEs

if you have co.uk and US hosting you may get in but with a struggle

[harlequin]

and as we understand it, if you have a .co.uk domain and host in the uk you will find it harder to get results on the google.com domain....although if you use a .com and have a host in the uk then google.com (the global variant) will treat you the same as anyone from anywhere and give you the same chance to be listed on google.com

so, for uk sites, host in the uk and try to obtain the .com and .co.uk variants of your domain, especially the .co.uk variant... this gives you the all round best chance of decent results.

we sucessfully split our google page rank between the .com and .co.uk variants of our site months ago and you do get registered for both..visit the google section of www.webmasterworld.com for more info on most things google..also www.seochat.com and www.google-dance.com

i suppose its a little more like true shopping now in that if you wish to trade in a country you will really probably having to host a website in that country...alls fair in love and business etc...

and i think this is still all relevant to this post as uk traders need to consider carefully exactly where they host their sites if they are to be truly successful.

steve

[jonwilliams]

My goodness...you guys have been busy while I was in bed!!

Do I get a prize from Actinic....60 something replies and 600+ views of the thread I started! Must be a record ...

Even though my site is still not working, I have no way of telling whether this is a Unix problem or not. When the site first went up on Unix, it DID work (albeit shortlived) and the original checkout speed problem seemed cured. There are other advantages I can see to Unix (although I don't know whether these are just at my host) such as online stats, online control panel for setting up domains, email addresses etc, webmail. So thanks for the offer Harlequin, but I'd prefer to stick with it and try to work out what the problem is.

Thanks to those who have offered to take a closer look - I will be taking you up on your offer because I am almost at my wits end. I thought I'd be clever by designing a nice bespoke template (which is not bad for an amateur I think) and using all the extra actinic bits I could use, but it really seems to have backfired. Plus having splashed out on the Developer version as I have more sites I want to do, I am a bit cheesed off with the whole thing to say the least.

Thanks for the useful comments about SEs too.

Any more ideas about the problem....?!

Thanks
Jon:(

[wfl]

The site does work, it did last night and it is not too slow. Even the bloody perl script seems to work OK.

You can go to it and enter via the front page links no problem.

But then some very basic html links don't work.

That is not down to the server it is down to pathing and file naming.

For instance on this page http://www.globaholic.com/acatalog/ind.html the link to incense doesn't work because http://www.globaholic.com/acatalog/incense.html doesn't exist.

We are not looking at server issues here. We are looking at pathing or naming issues.

I think Jon needs to go back and look at some basics on the customisation and hard coding he has done.

[Jenny]

However, I am still here with my windows 2003 server (ok on older servers) checkout/perl problems but to move to linux I have to set up some binary codes to cope with the guys affilaite software and that's greek to me.

Is anybody else working Ok on Envisage Microsoft windows 2003 servers ok? As I say my older windows servers are fine!
Jenny

[jonwilliams]

Well it's not working from where I am sitting....either at the day job (where I am now: IE 5.5 through a corporate firewall, and tried Netscape 7 as well) or at home on IE6 on a 56k dialup.

Thanks for pointing out more hardcoded errors. I did change some file names to see if that had any effect, and I need hardcoded links in places as I have duplicate categories for most products (based on product type and country of origin) (Actually I am going to change that anyway as it is too confusing). But that is NOT the main problem. I still can't get at any of the pages via actinic-generated links from the home page (either from the dropdown menu or from the images on the left which are brochure fragments linked to sections.

So how come sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't?

Jon

[harlequin]

john, i really hope you sort your issues out and get your site working...i can still hear the note of disparity in your voice and if you were having trouble with ANY host or ANY type of server we would probably offer a temporary 'shelter' from the storm of obtaining reasonable, working hosting..

the facilities you mention in my opinion should be offered by any serious webhost and of course come as standard over at our place...

the record straight part is that, having just said all of that (and the above posts), i must point out we are not 'sharking for your business' just appreciative that 1 month ago your site worked and utilised asp on a windows server and something went wrong and if thats the case and you still have copies of where you had gotton to at that point, i am almost 100% sure we could have you live and trading in far less time than it takes to change the domain name over...if you are relying on income from the webshop it would give you a month or two depending on how much you flattered us to sort something long term out whether with us or anyone else.

with any luck though you will get sorted now you are almost there with the wealth of cracking advice here....and enjoy some stability.

knowing my luck, i shall spend the day attending to windows problems for my cockiness!

steve..

ps. jenny, if your windows 2000 servers are the only ones working fine why do you need to move or upgrade them...is there some compelling reason to go 2003 or Linux?

[jonwilliams]

Thanks again for the offer Steve and I know you're not just "sharking".

I really appreciate all the help I am getting from some obviously very well qualified people, but we still haven't identified what the problem actually is so of course we don't know how to fix it.

I would prefer to try to sort out the problem first on my current server, as it would mean further (if minor) upheaval changing again and re-introducing the asp forms etc, but as time goes on I am getting more and more concerned. I have an absolute deadline of 1 September when we are attending a trade show, and at that point we will definitely need the site up and running as we will be giving the address out in literature/business cards etc.

Jon

[harlequin]

tell ya what, you can send me a snapshot if you like, i will upload to my server, and simply test if site and links start working,

if it works on my server, or i suppose even, doesnt , i would then happily see if i can spot what is wrong on yours for you...ps i did host actinic on unix for about six months at the start of our business so i am confident that if all the permissions are correct on your server, which i could verify, and if the settings in actinic are correct, and some other things like all the pm and pl files in your site1 folder are the correct versions, and your hard-coded elements are right, then the only thing after that would be your hosts overall setup of the machine left to blame..especially as its super-linux, it cant be anything else..


my one shining light in all of this is the knowledge that with some tweaks Actinic would probably run from a zx spectrum if you configured it correctly.. (and had a 32mb memory for it ;) )

the offers open, if you do want to, then send a zipped up snapshot to steve@<removethisbitcosofspambots>harlequindomains.com

i will look at it today for you...AND happily get it going on a 'sniff' unix server :) if i can....a challenge to me is a challenge..

steve

[Jenny]

I just sent an email direct offering the same service but not on the server that does not work!! hoho.. Perhaps I could have some offers for the rest of my work load so I could sunbathe (unpaid of course)
Jenny

[harlequin]

why you are compelled to use win2003 / Linux ? rather that the working win2k

im just curious,

steve

[jonwilliams]

Thanks guys. I really do appreciate your help - I am sending you a snapshot shortly.

Cheers
Jon

[Jenny]

With the reseller account I have I cannot add a new site to anything but the new 2003 windows or linux servers. existing sites are on windows 2k which seem to be fine (today).. Long saga.. Can't just move because of this bespoke affiliate software that has been installed or at least I don't know enough perl to do it..
Jenny

[wfl]

Jon

It works fine here at 12:58.

I don't think the fact that you can't see it has anything to do with your host server.

Perhaps you should look at your PCs. Quite probably the corporate firewall is preventing you from seeing it at work. As for your home link well.....

I could see it at home on a BT 64K ISDN connection and I can see it at work on a Demon Broadband connection.

Have you cleared out the cached pages on your PCs?

Do you have a proxy server on the corporate network that has cached pages from yesterday.

Do you run cyberpatrol at work?

Do you have personal firewall running on your PC at home.

[wfl]

Jenny

W2003 is starting to perform better for us with ActiveState Perl. We are still not 100% happy and are continuing to test.

We are also going to run a side by side comparison on a W2K box next week. Will let you know how it gets on.

PS Chris D. Any chance of dividing this thread?

We have two entirely different subjects being discussed.

[jonwilliams]

Alistair

In answer to your questions:

Have you cleared out the cached pages on your PCs? => I have done a forced refresh (ctrl-F5) - is that enough?

Do you have a proxy server on the corporate network that has cached pages from yesterday. => Sorry, don't know, it's a big company where the day job is...wouldn't know who to ask.

Do you run cyberpatrol at work? => Don't know (see above)

Do you have personal firewall running on your PC at home. => No, but I was strongly considering getting one after getting infected with the msblast worm recently despite my Norton Antivirus, plus an increasing annoyance over pop-up ads, especially ones that invite my children to go and see natalie showing off with her webcam! (Perhaps even a third thread subject here?)

Does that help?

Thanks
Jon

[harlequin]

hi jon, here is a link to your site uploaded onto our server.

http://www.dev1.actinichosts.net/index.html

ive got to be honest and say that alastair was correct to say that on the face of it the issue lies with your hardcoded links and i know you that you are thinking about the structure of how you lay out your sections..but again i wouldnt be too hasty about re-thinking it, as i think there is some possible benefits to the way you are going to lay out your site based on the fact that you
have replicated products in different ranges...and all it needs to work is the correct pages to link to as coded by you.

in actinic there is a simple method to see what the page names are whilst you are editing the catalog, go to view,business settings and on the options tab you will tick the box for 'show page names whilst editing catalog'. this will allow you at least to see the page names in actinic you are trying to link to.

as an example, on the site on our server, from the front page, go into the section for india, and whereas your link to indian incense doesnt work, mine does, the reason is i linked it to the correct html (blahblah/acatalog/inc.html) page, you havent..

as far as i can see, the site is now working, even on your live site the images are displaying in the cart whereas at 5am this morning they werent...is this an example of your sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt?

If it starts having problems showing images in the
cart logo again, or starts not letting you get to pages via the drop downs, (which use cgi also) then it would seem to be your webhosts cgi scripts either timing out too
quickly for their server load..or the server itself isnt correctly
configured..

at the moment whilst your webhost holds out, look closely at your links, get them right, and all will be working and a credit to you..

please let me know if i can be of any further assistance...if you ARE still having trouble, you may be in for more ahead...specially as you get busier, i have just been here before with hosts who have got too many sites on 1 server...or have them optimally configured NOT for actinic,

for your info, on the speed issue, at
http://www.netmechanic.com/toolbox/html-code.htm type into the box there
http://www.globaholic.com/acatalog/storetop.html

notice the results for page load times...almost identical in their slowness to my http://www.dev1.actinichosts.net/acatalog/storetop.html

so i contend there is no speed difference for you on a unix server against a well configured windows one.

hence, my argument has been that you were hastily advised to dump windows when that was not nescessarily the right course to start 'advising' you to do....and shame on those who would seek to poo poo my posts just because it raises questions about common assertions that are based around this 'linux is better than windows bunkum' and upsets the apple cart so to speak...

hey, dont get mad, this is just my opinion... (that bit is for you all and wasnt in johns direct email..)

[wfl]

Jon

I have looked again and found that your front page links are are not working because the login script fails.

It worked me because I have already found my way in here;

http://www.globaholic.com/acatalog/ind.html

Once past the front page I can browse fine.

So we are still at your configuration of Actinic.

I don't know what you have done but the script should let you through but the resultant page doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps you should look at your path from /cgi-bin to /acatalog.

Personally though I have ditched the script from the front page into the catalog and hard coded a direct link. If you don't do that then search engines don't see the link.

[wfl]

Steve

I don't think we should be getting excited about platforms. Whether anyone is a Windows, Unix or Linux fan is neither here nor there.

We have a problem at the moment with V6 on Solaris whereas I have V5 flying on it.

We have Actinic working fine on W2K but we are having some issues with it on W2003. But heck, W2003 has only been out the box 6 weeks so we haven't all finished beta testing it for Bill yet.

All the problems we have at the moment stem from Actinic's use of perl in V6 with the possible exception of MS perl on W2003

The point is we need to pool our knowledge and get V6 working well independant of platform.

Once everyone has finished cleaning up after msblast there is supposed to be large MS patch for W2003 this weekend so let's see if that helps.

[garyhay]

Steve and others.

I may advise people to dump MS hosting in favour of IX hosting as in my experience it just works better.

I have also posted messages telling MS users that YOUR hosting is optimised for Actinic is is a good option.

In general I have nothing against MS and in fact dont understand what all the MS bashing is for, if it was not for them most of us would probably still be electricians/engineers or whatever.

If you have a snapshot of http://www.dev1.actinichosts.net/index.html maybe you could send it to me and I can test it out on set up just to see what happens.

[jonwilliams]

Continued thanks to all....:)

Alistair's comment about the login script not working on the homepage prompted me to try logging in with an ID and password I had set up. It logged me in ok and took me to the main catalog page (blabla/acatalog/storetop.html) but none of the graphics were there at all.

As the URL of that page when logged in is blabla/cgi-bin/bb000001.pl, does that mean it is back to a path from /cgi-bin/ to /acatalog/ issue?

The path from cgi-bin to acatalog bit in the server details in the network setup says:

../httpdocs/acatalog/

The /cgi-bin/ and /httpdocs/ directories are both at the root.

And if the paths are incorrect, how come the network setup wizard sets up the above settings and they test OK?

I feel we maybe getting closer....

Jon

PS Gary - the snapshot is in my yahoo briefcase - I will email you the link. Cheers

[harlequin]

hi gary, as far as i can tell, the website at www.globaholic.com is now working correctly. It is as alistair suggested more a problem with hard coded links to sections rather than an actinic or platform error...

HOWEVER, looking at johns post above, it seems that this site is working intermittently, it may well be that the site is working now, but will struggle with cgi again later when other websites on that server get busy....we shall have to wait and see...

If john doesnt mind i will pass on the site to you, but when i got it, i imported my network settings, didnt even do a preview, and it uploaded first time, no errors, and it works perfectly on mine, but then i noticed the live website was working fully by then as well...

so if the hosting holds up, and john re-codes his links then i think his issues are sorted..

john ? shall i forward this snapshot to gary or are you ok for now? Its only right i ask.

oh, one thing you might gary to look at as i know he knows his templates..., is the javascript error that is occuring inside the catalog pages, this is not stopping the store or any functionality on the face of it but is im sure annoying and potentially worrying to newbies shopping there...im not so clever with working out browser errors/javascript ...

steve...

[Jenny]

Hi Steve, jon sent me a snapshot but I have been out most of the day and have just got back. Shall I take your snapshot or is Gary going to look. Quite happy whatever. Up to you Jon, or I can look as well.
Jenny

[jonwilliams]

Steve

I have sent Gary the link to the snapshot. And yes, I would like to solve the annoying script errors.

I reiterate though that the site is not working properly. I know those hard-coded links don't work and I will change them, but it is the non-working actinic-generated links from the drop down menu and the brochure fragment images on the home page which I want to work as that is key to the sites functionality.

Thanks as ever.

Jon

PS Jenny - yes, please look at the snapshot, the more the merrier.

PPS going for the world record here....when we get to 100 replies and 1000 views on this thread, I am expecting a certificate from actinic. Oh, and a very large drink from me for all you Sherlock Holmes out there!:)

[harlequin]

i think john that whatever you are browsing the site on is causing your java and cgi routed links to fail, it is working for me now, as of 16.57...

you did ask before if ctrl+f5 was enough to empty your cache / refresh a page?

sometimes its not enough..

if you are using internet explorer, go to tools>options>general tab, and in the temporary internet files area. click the delete files button

also tick the box and delete all offline content when it offers this to you.

then click the settings button next to that, and tick the box for 'check for a newer version of this page every visit'

that might clear your cache and allow you to see your site working..

close internet explorer and open a fresh instance of it and then try your front page...fingers crossed..

steve

[garyhay]

Jon

You do know that a lot of Actinic variables are missing from the site?

[jonwilliams]

Steve

Did as you suggested (whilst standing on one leg reciting lines from The Matrix ;) ) but still no good. Thanks anyway.

Jon

[jonwilliams]

You do know that a lot of Actinic variables are missing from the site?

See, I knew it was me who had screwed up and not Bill Java Gates Unix giving me the run around. Sorry Gary, which variables are they and where should they be?

Jon

[harlequin]

have you tried from home yet or are you still at work..

also, what version of windows you on? go to Start Menu>Run and type winver and click ok

what version browser you on? in a browser go to help>about explorer


i am looking at your front page now, and of ALL the links on your front page, it is ONLY the actinic generated ones that ARE working for me..your hand coded contact us and tell a friend links arent working...

it gets stranger eh?

inside the site it all orders fine and i really wouldnt know anything was wrong except for the couple of hardcoded links we already know about..

can everyone else see johns front page now and use all the links except for the ones mentioned? can you all get into the site from the section links from the front page, or from the drop-down on the front page..

really, as far as i can see you only need to fix the hard links(minor), and the annoying java and you should be hot to trot..

steve

[harlequin]

i saw the variables and i didnt think there was anything to worry about, they have simply been removed to give johns preferred display..from a few templates..if its one of these causing any error it would be good to know..

screenshot of errors attached

[garyhay]

my post of the site is here http://www.e-commerce-aberdeen.com and it does more or less look okay and is functioning.

I will say that images seem to disappear then reappear and the hard coded links are suspect as you know.

One of our clients site has being having problems with the browser showing the same page differently to you when you first visit. If you refresh or click a link then the back button it is okay?

I have attached the Actinic message regarding missing variables but like Steve I dont think these should make a difference (but they might)

[wfl]

Yep most things seem to work OK but there do seem to be some random glitches.

There is a lot of customisation and scripting going on and it is beginning to look like that could be causing some of the problems. Perhaps there are some conflicts or poor consructs.

I always get an Error on Page message and looking through the source code I can see a lot of oddities.

As I said before it looks like Jon needs to take a step back and look at what he has done. Was there a point in time in the design process where it worked fine?

[jonwilliams]

I am home now on Windows XP ver 5.1 and IE6.0 and still the same problems.

However.....Gary, looking at the site on your server, the brochure fragment image links (i.e. the images down the left hand side) do work, although the drop-down menu links don't.

Wierd, huh?

I know I have done a lot of customisation and as a non-professional have probably been very untidy about it. However, yes it was all working on the windows server, and the problems only strated when I moved to Unix (to solve the speed problem apparently) not having changed anything at all to the best of my knowledge.

Perhaps Steve is right, I need to start over with a simple site and add the various twiddly bits back in one by one testing along the way.

Jon

[Jenny]

if you add an item to the basket, got to checkout then cancel it then fails on gary's site and Jon's.. by the way.
Jenny

[garyhay]

The drop downs worked okay on my office PC Win98 IE5.

If you JON are saying it worked before you moved server then have you recoded the links for the new cgi-bin URL??

[jonwilliams]

I shouldn't have to recode any links for the new cgi-bin url should I, well not the actinic-generated ones anyway?

Gary suggested by email using a normal hard-coded html page (i.e not an actinic brochure page) for the home page as a way around the problems. This sounds like a good idea even as a temporary fix as all my problems (well the critical ones anyway) are associated with this page.

Going to be out now for most of the rest of the day, but any more comments/suggestions gratefully received as ever. (We haven't got to 100 replies yet!)

Cheers
Jon:)

[Jenny]

Having had a look around, the worst of it just seems to be the links that are hardcoded. When I fiddled around with the links, it started to take shape with no real problems. Catch up with you later Jon.
Jenny

[harlequin]

hey john, if you are going to re-do how you have laid out your sections, and want to use a fantastic drop down system that happily works on your brochure pages then see norman's page at www.rouxel.cwc.net/actinicstuff

the drop downs on there are excellent and well within your capabilities to add them to your site.. theres some other really clever things there and im sure you will probably use a couple...

if you are going to end up with quite a few replicated products accross sections, then Jan @ www.mole-end.biz has a great product that enables this for you...especially as you have developer and may end up (and should really) building multiple sites with the same products (just laid out differently for S.Engine purposes)...

and yes, i would (not saying you should) but i would probably start from scratch with an Actinic Business Layout (the cleanest one of the bunch) and be completely methodical about your approach to it... to be honest, thats what i actually do, create a site which cant help but be a bit all over the place because of so many changes whilst building it, and then i look at finished result, and build again from clean, it shouldn't take you a tenth of the time it did to build....

something else whilst you build, where you have deleted netquotevars from templates it is better to comment them out with

<!-- commented out stuff here -->

you then wont get missing netquotevar errors.

i would offer you a free test webspace account because i have enjoyed this post but as we already know, you are now on unix and i am on windows..:D

please continue to post your questions whilst you build/rebuild...i am sure you will..

steve

[wfl]

Jon

If you are thinking about starting again don't be disheartened. What you have done is a lot of good work but perhaps you were doing some learning while you did it. As Steve says we all do it and the second attempt should take a fraction of the time.

If you do go for a rebuild then here are some things I do to keep track;

As Steve says use comments to retain the NETQUOTVARS on the page, at least until it is finished and after to stop the can't find messages.

Use comments to make note your changes and additions.

Keep regular copies of the site so that you can easily get back to a point.

Wherever possible don't overwrire ACT_ files. Create your own JW_ versions or whatever.

Make sure compress html is off until you are finished. That way you cand see what you fave done when you look at the preveiw or site html.

Do a live test the starting point theme that you use and then and then try to test each major step one at a time on your web server to make sure it works.

That way you should have no bad links, no errors on page and a slick site.