Network problems with Xilo

[10thWay]

Hello,

I host with Xilo, recently I noticed that order confirmation emails did not arrive on random orders. I tested the network settings & this is what i got:

Error 500:

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@10thway.co.uk and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

The possible causes Actinic is suggesting are as follows:

The test script failed to execute on the web server. The error could be caused by several things. Check:
- the 'Path to the Perl shell'
- the 'CGI script extension'
- the 'Path to CGI-BIN'
- the 'CGI-BIN URL'
- the amount of web space left on your server
- if your server is configured to accept POSTs to CGI scripts
- the permissions on the server:
On Linux/Unix based servers the permissions should be:
cgi-bin (755)– drwxr-xr-x
Online Store Folder (777)– drwxrwxrwx
On Windows based servers (need to be checked with the hosting company):
IIS
cgi-bin = read/execute
Online Store Folder = read/write/execute
NTFS
cgi-bin = Catalog's FTP account needs 'Change' permissions on the directory
Online Store Folder = Catalog's FTP account needs 'Change' permissions on the directory AND the IUSR_<servername> account needs to have 'Change' permissions on the directory

I contacted Actinic support & they tested my network settings (below) which came back correct:

HTTPPROXYMODE 0
HTTPPROXYADDRESS
HTTPPROXYPORT 80
HTTPPROXYUSER
HTTPPROXYPASSWORD
FTPPROXYMODE 0
FTPPROXYADDRESS
FTPPROXYPORT 21
FTPPROXYUSER
FTPPROXYPASSWORD
SCRIPTID 1
SCRIPTEXT .pl
SMTPHOST mail.10thway.co.uk
WEBSITEURL http://www.10thway.co.uk/
IGNOREPASSIVEERRORS true
USERELATIVECGIURLS false
PATHTOPERL /usr/bin/perl
USEENHANCEFTP true
FTPCLIENTTIMEOUT 15000
FTPRETRYDELAY 3000
FTPSILENT true
FTPMAXRETRIES 3
FTPCONNECTTIMEOUT 25000
SMTPAUTHREQUIRED true
SMTPUSERNAME *****10thway.co.uk
SMTPPASSWORD *********
CATALOGURL http://www.10thway.co.uk/acatalog/
ONLINESTOREFOLDERNAME acatalog
CGIBINURL http://www.10thway.co.uk/cgi-bin/
PATHFROMCGITOCATALOG ../acatalog/
CODEBASE ./
FTPHOST ftp.10thway.co.uk
FTPUSERNAME ********
FTPPASSWORD ********
PATHTOCGIBIN ./public_html/cgi-bin/
USEPASSIVEFTP false
FTPPATHFROMCGITOCATALOG

I should also menton that despite this, I can upload/refresh the site without problems.

Finally, emails are also failing (see attached screenshot).

Any help you could offer would be much appreciated.

Matt Graziani

[Mike Hughes]

Have you by any chance got a comma separating multiple email addresses in your email address field ? Or even a comma after a single address? In actinic you just use a space to separate multiple email addresses in 'send receipt email copies to:'

Mike

This may not be the cause of all your problems as you have some odd error messages in your errror log that I haven't seen before.

[10thWay]

Hello Olderscot,

Thanks for responding, I just checked, we only have one email address in there & no commas.

I really don't know what's going on mate.

[Mike Hughes]

Xilo say you can send emails from the server using localhost:

If you are sending from the server itself, you can just use the mailserver as 'localhost' without a username or password.

So try this:

- clear the email username and password boxes
- turn off smtp authentication
- enter localhost as the name of the smtp server

Mike

[10thWay]

Thanks for responding, nope, still the same.

By the way, I still get the following error when testing the network settings:

Actinic received a server error from the web server. The CGI scripts are not executing properly on the server. The error could be caused by several things. Check:
- the 'Path to the Perl shell'
- the 'CGI script extension'
- the 'Path to CGI-BIN'
- the 'CGI-BIN URL.
- the amount of web space left on your server
- if your server is configured to accept POSTs to CGI scripts
- the permissions on the server:

On Linux/Unix based servers the permissions should be:
cgi-bin (755) – drwxr-xr-x
Online Store Folder (777) – drwxrwxrwx
On Windows based servers (need to be checked with the hosting company):
IIS
cgi-bin = read/execute
Online Store Folder = read/write/execute
NTFS
cgi-bin = Catalog's FTP account needs 'Change' permissions on the directory
Online Store Folder = Catalog's FTP account needs 'Change' permissions on the directory AND the IUSR_<servername> account needs to have 'Change' permissions on the directory

Run Web | Configure Web Site Details... to review your web site configuration.

[leehack]

Is it really worth this much trouble to try and get it working? You may never manage it and waste hours trying to do so. Select a company that works with actinic (please don't choose fasthosts or godaddy) and change over, so much easier. It's not a challenge trying to get a certain host to work with actinic, it's a sure fire way of wasting hours of your time and ultimately losing money.

[10thWay]

Hello Leehack,

You are right, I was just thinking the same. I had a look around and prices vary a lot. I was considering webfusion.com, do you know if they are any good?

Otherwise, what's the best deal/company you could suggest?

Thanks,

Matt.

[RuralWeb]

Network settings for webfusion here (http://www.ruralwebdesign.co.uk/acatalog/website_hosting_cumbrian.html)

[10thWay]

Thanks mate, what do you think of them? Any good?

[RuralWeb]

I have over 40 sites on them and I think they are one of the best. They do have problems every now and then but so do all the others

[10thWay]

OK, I'll have a look at their packages shortly.

[leehack]

Webfusion, pinbrook, tame the web and 1 & 1 are regularly spoken about on the forum, i personally would not look outside of using one of those 4. They are proven providers with a number of actinic users, thus maximum support.

[Darren B]

They do have problems every now and then but so do all the others

This is so true, its how they deal with it is more to the point.

[RuralWeb]

its how they deal with it is more to the point
True - Im sure every hosting company has its horror stories including all of the above

[10thWay]

Thank you all for your feedback. I found a new host which is much more reliable & ready to offer support.

I am still appaled by Xilo's (lack of) customer service. They have been most un-helpful, so whatever you do, don't go with Xilo...!

Thanks,

Matt.

[XILO]

Hi Matt,

I thought I'd also post on this thread just to clarify that the issue was not related to a 'network problem'.

We do have many customers using Actinic without any issues whatsoever - some of which have been with us over 3 years, but the amount of support that we can offer on a product that we do not use internally or supply is limited - but we will always try and do what we can to help.

From the phone call and communication via our support centre, I did advise that without a copy of the software, we were effectively working 'blind' and could only offer suggestions as to the issue. We did offer to fix the issue using software if you could provide us with a way to run it, which you declined. In a last ditch attempt we even personally attempted to contact Actinic to see if there was anyway we could get a version of the software to be able to help you but I was constantly referred to Actinic's hosted products - which is obviously not what we wanted.

Sorry that you were not able to get Actinic working on our servers with your site but I am more than willing to work with any Actinic customer as best we can to get their software working should they already have an account with us.

Tom

[Darren B]

Fair play for replying, how ever actinic is free to download and try.

Personally i don't think actinic requires anything out of the norm to run. If you have a many actinic users then perhaps you could publish the network settings required to run.

Just a suggestion you understand

[10thWay]

Hello Xilo,

I am not prepared to send you over a copy of my licensed actinic software together with a snapshot of my site I hope you will understand.

I am not happy with the way I've been dealt with by Xilo, as you even refused to refund a hosting upgrade I made in the hope to fix the issue & which I never used.

All in all, Xilo gave me the impression of being just another money grabbing company...

Regards,

Matt.

[XILO]

Hi Darren and Matt,

I do appreciate there is a trial version but as we've never used the software personally, I wasn't aware that you could interchange the versions which is why I had tried to work with Matt on being able to work with their version so that we could ensure we were all singing from the same song sheet.

I'm sorry you had gotten that impression Matt, as I can assure you we do try and help as much as we can with third party software.

If you'd like to try us again sometime Matt, please drop me a line either via our contact form or phone and I'll ensure you are looked after and an account arrange free of charge for you.

Tom

[pinbrook]

I did advise that without a copy of the software, we were effectively working 'blind' and could only offer suggestions as to the issue. We did offer to fix the issue using software if you could provide us with a way to run it, which you declined. why couldn't you test with a 30 day trial version of actinic?

I am not prepared to send you over a copy of my licensed actinic software together with a snapshot of my site I hope you will understand. you shouldn't need to if xilo use a 30 day trial, however there is an option within the trouble shooting menu where you can create a support snapshot - this is a snapshot without order detail ie nothing confidential

[RuralWeb]

Well done Tom for replying and trying to help - unfortunately many problems are user created with actinic and if a user is not prepared to help you help them then there is not much you can do.

[TomW]

Hi,

I did reply to this but my post was deleted and account blocked.

I've emailed Matt direct about this.

Thanks

Tom

[TomW]

why couldn't you test with a 30 day trial version of actinic?

Hi,

I was not aware you could do this with a trial verion - accessing a full paid version of the site. As I said in my [deleted] reply, we dont use this software day in, day out.

I'm going to leave our posts here as Actinic clearly don't want us on their turf ;)

Tom

[Duncan Rounding]

If you could post sample network settings that have been used for Actinic then people could be confident that your hosting would be ok.

Download the trial, upload a test site, then export the network settings that work and post them as a sample.

[pinbrook]

and of course test email within the product as this causes most new users the biggest amount of grief