an error occurred when sending the merge request

[davidfarndon]

um ..

just imported a developer 7.0.1 deployed site onto a clients actinic catalog 7.0.1 machine.

did a couple of mini alterations and attempted (on the client's machine) to upload the new version. Everything went tickity boo until right at the end I get to this 'error on merge request'. OK is the only option and that's it.

This is the first deployment of the site, all the network connections test fine, everything else seems fine .. any thoughts? .. my machine uploads without fault. But obviously need to get this glitch overcome so Mr Client can amend product lists etc.,


David

[jxm28788]

think this is a problem with security on either the cgi-bin or acatalog directory. double check all the access rights are correct for the user that you have specified in the network setup.

[davidfarndon]

thanks John,

I just did a complete site refresh from the client's machine and that worked ok. Not sure what was going on, but the site refresh (rather than an incremental update) seemed to fix the glitch.

thanks for your suggestions. Why are we all working on a Saturday I wonder?

David

[jxm28788]

yeah, always worth trying that first.

Guess it's the only time we have free to play with our sites...

[jont]

I found this can also happen when the FTP times out right at the end or you have aborted an upload - usually hitting upload again resolves this or failing that a full refresh as you suggest.

Saturdays are great - the phone lines are much quieter so can get time to faff about with the sites

[BPJSURF]

This error is the single most common problem reported by Actinic users. I see this error with every upgrade. I see this error with every new site publish. There were changes made in either version five or version six of the ftp upload mechanisms and processes. Ever since this change these problems have occured in the uploads. I have not noticed that it happens with any particular hosting enviroment, this issue is systemic of all hosting enviroments. It seems that the ftp session is lost at the final merge process. I have not seen this problem with any other program with an internal ftp? I know that Actinic is aware of this issue as I had reported it to them on more then one occasion many months ago.

Refreshing the site a second time works. However I beleive this to be a bug IMHO. If you have 6000 products and install an upgrade patch from 702 to 703 it means it will take you an hour an a half to upload the refreshed patch site. Twice. Its a waste of time. At least the problem is consistant. It happens with every upgrade.

I guess I should spend more time looking into the issue. Its a problem that has been plaugung the software for far to long. Once I review the logs and test some ftp sessions on our servers if I come up with a real solutions I will post it to the thread. In the mean time maybe Actinic development will put more effort into the problem.

[BPJSURF]

from the knowledgebase (not that this answers the problem)
When "Web|Update Website" is requested the following actions are performed in sequence.

Checking Catalog...
All the .cat (section information) and most of the .fil (configuration information) files are generated at this time. The generated files are saved to the site directory.

Checking HTML pages...
Actinic goes section by section and generates the HTML files for all the sections. The HTML templates used for the cart or checkout, search page, site map, etc. are also generated at this time. The generated pages are saved to SiteHTML folder.

Checking brochure pages...
If brochure is enabled the related HTML files are generated at this phase. The generated pages are saved to SiteHTML folder.

Checking search indices...
Actinic generates the index file for online search at this phase. The search index is saved to the site directory.

Reviewing files...
Actinic checks if there were a previous upload and if so determines which files have changed and should be uploaded (by using the file dates). This does not happen if you use 'Web | Refresh Website'.

Sending base files...
Actinic creates an ftp connection and uploads the base files (perl scripts) to the server. When the upload is done a new ftp session is created and the file permissions are adjusted as required.

Purging files...
Actinic investigates the folders on the server to find any files uploaded previously but not required at the moment. If such a file found on the server the file is removed.

Sending catalog files...
The content of the acatalog directory (and the applet files) are uploaded at this phase. All the HTML files (catalog and brochure), BLOBs, images and other files are uploaded to the acatalog directory via ftp (by default).

Uploading Digital Download Files...
If Digital Download is enabled then the DD files are uploaded in this separate phase. The methods mentioned above (Sending catalog files) apply here.

Merging incremental updates at the web site
There are a few large data files (search index, customer account details) used in Actinic Ecommerce. It would be quite ineffective to upload them in case of any small change. Therefore Actinic keeps a copy of these files from the previous upload (if there were any) and compares to the current one - making updates as necessary. MergeDiff.pl assembles these files.