Site has developed a glitch. Any suggestions?

[JoyceOdell]

Have developed a glitch, and my attempts to fix it have made it worse. Any suggestions?

I built a site in Dreamweaver 2021, on a  2018 iMac running Mojave, just in case this is relevant. The site has been online since about February 2022.

Okay, there is a main title image and an image banner at the top of the pages. These are individual .png files. 

I changed the image banner with the individual page subject name of one of them. I relinked it, it showed up in Dreamweaver, but although I replaced the banner image on the site, the new title didn't swap out for the old one. Even though I had deleted the old one, that was still the image that showed when I opened the page in a browser.

Okay, that was phase 1. Annoying, but the page still functioned. So today I tried to fix it by changing the name of the .html page and re-linking it to the menu in the template. It appeared to work. I re-uploaded the correct image file, and uploaded all the pages linked to that template.

Now the page appears to be lost. The menu link does not bring it up at all. 

I went into TimeMachine and restored the site from yesterday. All of the site. All of the files. Everything ought to be back to where it was yesterday, right?

It isn't. The page has the old name. The Template links to it under the old name. But when I try to preview in a browser, I get a lost page which never  appears.

Does anyone have any idea of how i can fix this and get the page back again. Preferably with the correct image banner, but I'll do without if i have to.

[JoyceOdell]

To add to the above; I managed to get it to work inside Dreamweaver with a browser preview. But the uploaded files still refuse to load the page online..

[osgood_]

To add to the above; I managed to get it to work inside Dreamweaver with a browser preview. But the uploaded files still refuse to load the page online..

By @JoyceOdell

So you now have it working locally in Dreamweaver when you view it in your browser BUT it doesnt work when you upload the same page to your remote server and view it in your browser?

If that is the case can you provide a link to the page which is online so someone can have a look at the source code?

[Jon Fritz]

If you...

1) have uploaded all pages and images, keeping in mind images won't go automatically with the page they're on, they need to be uploaded manually

2) have a naming convention that isn't problematic. For example: all lower case alphanumeric names without spaces or special characters. FILE.html is the same as file.html on your local OS, on your remote server, they are treated as two separate files (on Mac OS a link to MyPage.html will go to mypage.html without issue, online, it will be 404)

3) and have everything uploaded to the correct location (local site file structure must be identical the remote site). Your remote root folder (like public_html, www, or htdocs) should NOT show up within the Files window in DW. If it does, you may have your site set up incorrectly, and have a duplicate root folder online now.

...it sounds to me like you might be looking at information that's not being updated by the browser.

Have you tried clearing your browser cache, or using a different browser that hasn't visited the site recently?

[JoyceOdell]

Well, curiouser and curioser. I gave up yesterday, since it simply *would* not load, no matter what I did. This moring, it loads the OLD page. With the old banner image. Even though the old banner image is not available, because I deleted it. The actual page file links links to the new image. A refresh does not change anything. I'm inclined to just leave things be, since at least I'm *getting* the page now. Even if the title is wrong.

The page URL is: http://www.redhen-publications.com/elephant.html I had changed "elephant" to "pachyderm" since I'd retitled the essay to  'The Pachyderm in the Parlor' -- which is how the banner title .ping that is actually online has it. Manually changing Elephant to pachyderm in the URL brings up the new page -- with the old banner title, despite the fact that that pagen never used the old banner title.

That's in Safari. In Firefox the *proper* page loads -- with NO banner title. Despite the fact that the correct banner title is in the correct image fcolder, and the page is correctly linked to it, and shows it without a hitch in Dreamweaver. The same thing happens in Chrome. Manually changing elephant to pachyderm in both Firefx and Chrome brings up the old page, without any banner title .png.

Do what I will, none of my browsers will load the correct banner title, even though all of the page files are linked to it.

[JoyceOdell]

Arggh. Changing pachyderm to elephant manually in Firefox or chrome brings up the old page, without any banner title .png. 

[osgood_]

Arggh. Changing pachyderm to elephant manually in Firefox or chrome brings up the old page, without any banner title .png. 

By @JoyceOdell

Check on your remote server, the elephant.png file should be in the 'potterverse' folder which is in the 'essay' folder which is inside the 'banners' folder which is inside the 'basics' folder which is inside the 'Images' folder:

/Images/basics/banners/essay/potterverse/elephant.png

At the moment the image is not in that location because a '404 error file not found' page is returned.

Its no wonder you're having issues with a folder path structure like that. Why not simplify where you keep the images, particulary if you have only limited experience.

[JoyceOdell]

The pachyderm.png file is there. The elephant .png is deleted, because I relinked both versions of the page to the pachyderm.png file. None of the browsers are following that link, however. The link is fine inside of Dreamweaver. But no matter how often I upload the files, the link does not get maintained.

Nested folders *are* simple. Much simpler than having to dig through something over a thousand images to find the one you're looking for.

[osgood_]

On your remote server you are still linking to the elephant.png in the http://www.redhen-publications.com/pachyderm.html file????????

<a href="Images/basics/banners/essay/potterverse/elephant.png"><img src="Images/basics/banners/essay/potterverse/elephant.png" alt="The Pachyderm in the Parlor" width="750" height="78" class="banner" title="banner for potterverse essay: the pachyderm in the parlor"/></a>

Are you sure your host has not moved your files to another server and youre not uploading to the old server?

So what you are saying is you have uploaded the pachyderm.html file and you have changed the banner image in that file to pachyderm.png but the remote server shows elephant.png instead????

[Nancy OShea]

Not sure if this is related.  But the correct link should be HTTPS:// not unsecured http://

Code validation shows over 15 code errors on this page, some are critical.  Code errors often cause unwanted surprises. These need to be fixed and the files on the server must be replaced with error-free files.

https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fredhen-publications.com%2Felephant.html

Hope that helps.

[osgood_]

Not sure if this is related.  But the correct link should be HTTPS:// not unsecured http://

By @Nancy OShea

I think its unrelated because the page at https: still shows the elephant.png image is linked to the pachyderm.html page.

My guess is either the OP has not changed the link BUT think they have or uploaded the page to the wrong location, maybe even the wrong server and that is why the link is not updating. Its hard to understand from what has been posted so far what exactly is happening. 

It can get confusing very fast if you are NOT experienced. All I can suggest is put up a simple test page to the server and if that shows in the browser then one knows its the correct server the pages are being uploaded to. Then you can try and resolve the issue from that point.

[JoyceOdell]

The web host is Domain Registry of America.com if that means anything. I've had this account for something over 15 years. The site, in one iteration or another has been online since 2002, although it was definitely on a different server at that point, and with a different web host. I'm pretty sure that DROA has updated or changed servers at least once since I've been with them. But the site has always used the same URL.

The errors which you found are not indicated inside of Dreamweaver. Indeed, the Dreamweaver window doesn't alert me to any errors at all. I'm sure that the errors exist, but the writeup related to them is gibberish to me. There is a reason I use a web-builder with a graphical interface.

What I was attempting to do was to change the name of the page in its URL to pachyderm, rather than elephant, and to link it to the correct banner banner.png file. It appears that I have been unable to do either one by following the same basic procedures as I've been doing all along.

The new title banner .png file was uploaded and the old one deleted. The page(s) both have been linked to the new .pmg. The pages have both been uploaded and neither is displaying the .png file to which they have allegedly been linked, which is correctly displayed in the Dreamweaver window. The .png and both .html files have all been uploaded to the site online, placed in a duplicate of the organization of the files as they exist on my hard drive. Neither of the .html pages display the proper .png. In Firefox and Chrome there is no .png, in Safari it displays the .png which has been deleted.

Actually, I'd prefer to be able to update the name of the page to correspond with the current title of the essay, but that suddenly doesn't appear to be possible either.

I was unable to simply change the name of the page file manually, in the Finder and re-link it in Dreamweaver, under the new name. That produced a dead file which would not load in any browser preview.

I was unable to even simply copy/paste the page contents from the old elephant page to a new page from the template which I had saved under the pachyderm name. That produced a dead file which would not load in any browser preview.

I was able to edit the content of the page until it did load in the browser preview, uploaded the files to the website and got a dead file which would not load.

That was yesterday. Today the old elephant file is back, with the wrong .png (which no longer exists online), and refreshing the page does nothing. Nor does re-uploading the files.

[JoyceOdell]

The last time I uploaded anything new to the dit was at the end of April, when I had a new file added to athe template of the Publications collection. That entailed re-uploading the Publications collection's pages. That went without issue, to the best of my recollection.

From April 30 to June 19 does not seem like a viable oportunity to have the program simply stop working. There haven't been any updates in that time, and I've not installed anything new on the computer. But linked files on my local hard drive are not staying linked when uploaded, and the program is giving me no indication that anything is wrong.

[osgood_]

Please answer this simple question:

You duplicated the elephant.html file or a least changed its name to pachyderm.html and in this file you linked to the pachyderm.png file, then uploaded the pachyderm.html to your remote server, is that correct?

If that is correct your pachyderm.html file on your remote server is still showing a link to the elephant.png rather than the pachyderm.png image the last time I looked.

This leads me to believe either the updated html file has been uploaded to the wrong place, the image link has not been changed OR you are uploading to a different server, hence the image file does not update as it should.

[JoyceOdell]

Not quite. This is a mess that just keeps spreading.  The .png file had been replaced in the page weekes ago, I relinked it inside of Dreamweaver, it was displaying the correct .png in Dreamweaver, and I'd uploaded the corrected page and the new .png file to the server then. At that point I didn't delete the old .png, since nothing was now linked to it, so I could do that whenever I next going through the server files.

I didn't find out until this week that the page was still displaying the wrong .png. Yesterday I deleted the wrong .png from the server, checked, and saw that the correct .png is indeed there in the same folder, Checked the page in Dreamweaver which is displaying the correct .png, and re-uploaded both the page file and the correct .png. I went to my site, in a browser (Safari), the page is still displaying the wrong .png, which should no longer exist. I refteshed the page. Nothing changed.

Then I decided to try to rename the page and see if that could make it match the correct title. First I changed the name externally in the Finder. Then I went into Dreamweaver, opened the template file and re-linked the menu link to the renamed page. Saved. It updated all the files built from that template. Looked at the page -- which displays the correct title .png inside of Dreamweaver, Than up;oaded all the files linked to that template. And the correct .png file *again*

Went to the website and the page refused to load at all. 

That set me off on trying other procedures. First I restored the page to its original name. Tested in DW's browser preview. It loaded. 

The I created a new page from the template, and saved it under the name I wanted. Then I copy/pasted the content from the elephant page to the new pachyderm page. It looked fine. DW's window didn't indicate any errors. I tried to test it in preview and the page wouldn't load.

There was a fair bit of content editing, and back-and-forthing, which ended up with the template linked to the elephant page and an upload of *all* the site's pages, as well as (another) upload of the correct .png file, which the elephant page displays inside the program. By the end of the day the elephant file would load in a preview, the pachyderm file wouldn't load at all. Neither page would load on the website.

This morning the elephant file loads on the site, still with the wrong .png displayed. I do not knw where it is getting the wrong .png, but it's probably in the cache. 

I've checked the server contents via Fetch, which I use to upload files. The .png is there, in the correct folder. I do  not know why it is not being linked to. Nor do I know why simply changing the name of the page file from elephant.html to pachyderm.html would cause it not to load, once it has been linked to the template and saved.

[Nancy OShea]

Contact your hosting provider.  It sounds like you either have two servers and you're uploading to the wrong one.  Or perhaps your files are not going into your server's root directory which is vital in order to see the files.  Root directory varies by hosting plan and should be specified in your Manage Sites panel.   See screenshot.

[BenPleysier]

There is a very simple answer, the file cannot be found (404 error).

Upload the file to the correct folder. Alternatively, supply the correct link to the file.

[JoyceOdell]

Well this is what I see when I sign into my DROA account via Fetch. I'm assuming that the first image is of the root folder. I have never dealt with anything but the public_html folder. That's where the site lives. (And no, at this point I don't recall why the index file is duplicated in both. But it's been that way for over a decade and repeated each time I've done a site redesign.) The third is the inside of the relevant image folder the pachyderm.png file is definitely there. The elephant.png file is not. As stated above, there is a nested folder path in the image files. images/basics/banners/essay/potterverse. This exactly duplicates the way it is aranged in the site files on my hard drive.

It does sound like I do need to contact DROA's support on this. Because whatever the problem is, it isn't visible to me, and Dreamweaver tells me there is nothing wrong.

[Jon Fritz]

In your first screenshot, you have two folders that are typically used as a site root, "public_html" and "www", that were both updated "yesterday".

Verify with your hosting company which one of those is actually used as your public-facing site root, and then verify DW is using that correct folder in the Server window that Nancy shows above.

Your description of events and confusion may be caused by simply uploading to the wrong location.

[JoyceOdell]

Well, I do know that I have uploaded everything to the public_html folder, because using Fetch means that first you have to go *into* the folder and then "put" what you want to upload into it. I did just go onto the server and check the www folder. It does appear to be a duplicate of the public_html folder. I'll see whether the image files in that set match the others. If all I need to do is upload to duplicate folders, that's an easy fix.

Thank you for giving me another possibility to explore.

[JoyceOdell · Accepted solution]

Well, an update. I just spent a bit of time re-checking and  re-uploading things. In the course of which I discovered that the www folder seems to automatically update to match the public_html folder. I made another attempt to rename the 'elephant' page as the 'pachyderm' page. But even relinking it under the new name in the template file doesn't work, so I put it back to 'elephant'. 

The latest round of uploads now has the page showing up in Safari *with* the correct .png file, and a lost page with a 404 error in Firefox and Chrome. I'm not sure whether that counts as progress or not.

Well, just now, that is. We'll see what it decides to show me later on today, or tomorrow. 

[Nancy OShea]

Use Ctrl + F5 to refresh your browser's memory.

If might help to put a date & time stamped plain vanilla page on your site to see if your hosting provider is caching data on their end. 

Copy & paste this into a new, blank PHP file. SaveAs date-test.php.  

<p><?php echo date("D M d, Y G:i a"); ?></p>

Upload the test page to your server.  If you don't see the date & time stamped page right away, it's probably caused by your server.

[JoyceOdell]

I'll keep that in mind. I'll need to link it to the collection template and re-upload the whole collection. First I'll wait and see if I get another overnight correction, like the last time.

[JoyceOdell]

Well, I think I found the current problem. And it may just need clearing the cache. In Safari, the link brings up the 'elephant' page. Chrome and Firefox are both trying to bring up the 'pachyderm' page. Manually changing the URL to elephant brings up the age with no problems.

This despite the fact that the *template* links to the elephant page, and *that* is the version that was uploaded to the server. I'll do a duplicate upload to the www folder on the server just to cover all the bases. But otherwise, it seems to be an issue with browser behavior. And that is not under my control. Although I will clear the history in both of those just be be certain.

[Nancy OShea]

I speak from experience.  Perform the date & time test right away. 

When server's clock is set to the wrong date & time, bad things happen.  This might explain some of your issues.  Your host may need to reset your server's clock to the correct date & time.