IWeb pages not staying published?

I can't figure out if this is an iWeb '09 3.0.1 problem or a web hosting problem (FatCow). I can publish the site changes and wait for it to finish and most pages will show as published (blue) but lately I get an error message that iWeb had a problem contacting the FTP server, though it still publishes all but three or four pages (which DO show up in the website as though they are actually published just not in iWeb...). Now if I close iWeb and open it immediately thereafter, ALL the pages that WERE published just 30 seconds before show as red and if I need to make a change again I have to wait 10 minutes for it to publish all the site changes again. (But once again ALL the pages that show up as red in iWeb and unpublished are actually online as they should be...) Will publishing the entire site that will take over several hours help?

A guess would be that because you are having FTP problems and iWeb misses a few pages, it gets confused and just resets the upload markers. If so, then that is a bug in iWeb. After an upload problem like that, I would not quit and would try to update again until all the markers are blue.

Also, why has your FTP connection suddenly become less reliable? Are you having delays when using a web browser or other FTP tool such as Cyberduck? These may be hints at a performance issue.

Thank you, xstep. I have tried to re-publish afterwards and get the same error message and the same pages listed in red as not published or containing unpublished changes and it never changes. But in the meanwhile the pages are showing correctly in my website... And as for the FTP connection, don't know. I have always just uploaded it directly through iWeb and have just recently in the last month or two had this problem as the website has gotten larger.
Maybe it IS an iWeb glitch?

Agreed about the trouble shooting. Problem is, what if iWebs FTP connection is the problem. That would seem difficult to diagnose. I suppose BrenGun could use Cyberduck, but then you don't get the upload management of iWeb.

Thanks again, xstep and roddy. Yes, it launches fine from the index.html file and otherwise it seems to be fine. Like I said, even though some of the pages in iWeb show up as red after I relaunch iWeb as well as after I publish (and I get that 'problem with your FTP server' message), they ARE published and show up fine. It's just a PITA when I have to 're-publish' pages that are already there everytime that I DO update my site (which is about 2-4 times a week). So it makes for longer publishing times. Plus it's horrible if I do update with a large change... (right now I'm in the middle of a large upload which has been publishing for the last 4 and 1/2 hours... yes, but it's a large 400MB bunch of files and whatever else for a few new pages...AND the stuff that is essentially getting re-published for the 50th time). When I do a check in iWeb on the connection it shows up as fine. I have CyberDuck, but have no idea of how to use it. I'm pretty much a newbie as far as web publishing goes, which is why I am using iWeb (plus I like its interface...)

Decided to upload and synch everything to CyberDuck, but 12 hours later, I'm still waiting for CD to finish uploading and synching from a 1.2 GB folder... Creating pages in iweb is even a pain as it takes longer to save what I do create because it still believes that half of my site's pages are unsaved and unpublished... Any ideas?

But once this is done, I should be able to create pages in iWeb, publish to the local folder and then synch with CD, right? If I'm understanding this correctly.

Well, its finished the original 1.2GB synch, but now it states that its at 0B of 12MB while it goes through a list of "getting Timestamp or directory..." of so and so a file. Its been doing this for almost two hours. Anyone have any knowledge of Cyberduck, is this normal? This is driving me crazy. ALL I want to do is create a new page or two today...

This was in response to your 10:30am posting...

In theory, yes. You'll have to keep track of what you changed and upload that. Cyberduck can handle whole folders, so just upload the ones with the timestamp of your new changes. You may want to try this with a local folder with another copy of your site so that you can get the work flow down.

The one thing I'd be concern with is linking dependencies. If you have a link from one page to another and then change the name of the linked-to page, I would think you'd then have to upload both.

roddymckay, I just checked out your link. That was some interesting stuff.

H3ll, I would just let CD do its thing. 1.2GB has to be a lot of files so what ever it is doing sounds like a lot of work. Sucks if you have some need to disconnect your computer or turn it off.

xstep said:

This was in response to your 10:30am posting...

In theory, yes. You'll have to keep track of what you changed and upload that. Cyberduck can handle whole folders, so just upload the ones with the timestamp of your new changes. You may want to try this with a local folder with another copy of your site so that you can get the work flow down.

The one thing I'd be concern with is linking dependencies. If you have a link from one page to another and then change the name of the linked-to page, I would think you'd then have to upload both.

roddymckay, I just checked out your link. That was some interesting stuff.

Click to expand...

Thanks again, xstep. CD finished and then I uploaded another folder of changes to it that do not show up in my site... so I guess that I am doing something wrong or have CD set up in the wrong way or something? I'm just really, really frustrated with this. I was never sure to begin with what I was doing with iWeb except that it worked and now I'm in over my head with CD... Sorry, pointless post, but I have no idea what to do with a site that I may as well trash...

You might have to clear your browsers cache. For Safari that is under the 'Safari' menu as 'Empty Cache'.

Thanks again, xstep, but it doesn't show up in any web browser that I use, Safari (with the cache emptied...), Google Chrome or Firefox, my main browser. It just seems that CD didn't upload the test folder that I uploaded either. It seems that I have a problem with iWeb due to the fact that it continuously changes more of my just published files in blue to red as soon as I either quit the program or switch back and forth between FTP or publishing to the local folder. And the error message that iWeb gives me about having a problem contacting the FTP server (and thus leaving at least three pages in red (but showing up just fine and up to date online)).
Stupid question, but I'm using the built in FTP in iWeb to upload stuff to my web host server (Fatcow), right? There isn't some intermediary FTP service that I've forgotten about choosing last December when I started this website, is there? I know, stupid question, but I've been learning on the fly and everything has been by the seat of my pants...

I don't think you want to switch between FTP and a local folder. I would think that resets the knowledge of the published status.

If you set the FTP up in December and didn't change anything in iWeb, then I can't see why you suddenly would have problems.

Have you tried removing the iWeb preferences file? You can just drag it to the desktop if you don't want to delete it.

Have you connected with CD and browsed your site folders to find those missing files? If you can find them, maybe you can figure something out.

I really am curious what's up, but don't know how much help I can be from here.

Thanks again, xstep, I'm not sure why I'm having problems now. It was fine for at least 6 months before this started happening. I wasn't too concerned about it until it started thinking that some large pages weren't published and now it takes 8 hours every time that I select Publish Site Changes. The files/pages aren't missing either. They do show up correctly even when iWeb says that they are red and unpublished.
And everything does seem to be there in CyberDuck too.
There is one thing that I don't understand, though. I thought that publishing to the local folder was a way of backing up your site? That's why I do it either before or after I publish to web with the built in FTP.
I will check out the iWeb pref file, though and thanks again.

roddymckay said:

Have you tried re entering your information into the iWeb Site Publishing Settings page?

Click to expand...

Yes, tried that too.

I removed the two com.apple.iweb.plists from the Preferences folder and the ByHost folder to the desktop, rebooted and restarted iWeb. Everything is being shown as unpublished in red now and I am publishing the whole site now.... probably about 10 hours... Should I trash these files?

roddymckay said:

The reason I say that you have to focus on one way of uploading is that the iWeb FTP uploads the whole site folder whereas publishing with an FTP application gives you the option of doing this or uploading the files and not the folder to get a shorter URL. If you have used both methods without deleting previous files on the server you will end up in confusion!

Click to expand...

In at least in iWeb 09, it handles not having to upload the entire site each time via it's FTP option. After the initial upload it will remember what was uploaded previously just like it does for me.com accounts. The problem BrenGun is having is that iWeb is not remembering. I tested a very small 'site' I have and it did work that way.

I agree about the confusion. One really has to pay attention if using a FTP client. iWeb should be keeping that information locally, so from its perspective, it should only upload those files it thinks it needs to update. Since iWeb can work with more than one domain project, I'm not too hopeful that removing the plist files will be of much help. Hopefully I'm very wrong.

roddymckay said:

Trashing the plist and the cache files will help in some cases and iWeb will recreate them on relaunch.

Click to expand...

As it has and everything is the same, same red unpublished pages in iWeb that ARE published and show up fine and updated online even though iWeb says that there was a problem with contacting the FTP server.

roddymckay said:

When you re enter the data in the publishing settings page of iWeb, does the test work? What settings are you using for server address and directory path?
Sometimes you can solve this by entering the IP number in the server address box and leave the directory path blank.

Click to expand...

The built in iWeb test works everytime which confuses me as iWeb says that there is a problem. The server address is ftp.this-old-jeep.com and I have never used a directory path. I have no idea what the IP address is for the server, how would I find out?

roddymckay said:

The reason I say that you have to focus on one way of uploading is that the iWeb FTP uploads the whole site folder whereas publishing with an FTP application gives you the option of doing this or uploading the files and not the folder to get a shorter URL. If you have used both methods without deleting previous files on the server you will end up in confusion!

Click to expand...

Cyber Duck doesn't seem to work for me and as you said, it would get confusing, so I'm trying to focus on getting iWeb fixed. I thought that iWeb could only publish the site changes too and not have to go through the whole folder. CD takes forever to check all the timestamps (around 2 hours) as opposed to iWeb whether I'm using synch or just uploading one new folder within the main folder.

xstep said:

I agree about the confusion. One really has to pay attention if using a FTP client. iWeb should be keeping that information locally, so from its perspective, it should only upload those files it thinks it needs to update. Since iWeb can work with more than one domain project, I'm not too hopeful that removing the plist files will be of much help. Hopefully I'm very wrong.

Click to expand...

No, I've tried it twice now and removing the plist doesn't help at all.
Thanks again xstep.
What is the error message (iWeb cannot contact contact the FTP server, try again later or contact your FTP service) referring to? I thought that the FTP service that iWeb was using was its own. Could it be my web host?