Upload fails and Actinic hangs

[Redspan]

I first raised this in February last year and it's still an unresolved problem so I wondered if Actinic or an users have an fresh information about it.

The problem is that the upload fails on a frequent basis. All the checks are done and the upload of files begins. Sometimes the it gets as far as 99% complete before hanging, and at other times only a few files are uploaded. The upload stops and clicking on Actinic induces the "Not Responding" message at the top of the screen.

Bringing up the Windows Task Manager confirms that the application is no longer responding and it has to be forced to shut down, reloaded, and the application attempted again. It can fail like this several times in a row. On other occasions it works first time but these seem to be when the site changes are minor so the upload is quicker. If I leave it alone for long enough (an hour or more) it sometimes says that the "remote host is no longer responding" or "the remote host dropped the connection" or something like that.

I took this up with Actinic, my ISP, and my hosting company last year but no satisfactory solution was found despite many checks and trials. The workaround (suggested by Actinic) is to upload over a analogue modem as opposed to broadband. This does succeed more often but it is not infallible. Besides, it's a slow workaround not a solution.

My PC uses Windows XP Pro with ADSL and I'm using Business 6.1.3 with passive FTP transfers.

Am I the only one that experiences this? If so it would suggest that this is a problem unique to my setup, ISP, or hosting company, but if others experience the same it might suggest otherwise.

TIA,
Ben

[fleetwood]

Hi Ben
No, your not alone. I am using Catalog version 5, hosted by Claranet (with a high bandwidth account), and use a broadband connection, and find the same problem.
The problem appears to be acute when network traffic is likely to be high (1pm-5pm), suggesting either a server or ISP problem, but it is annoying the way Actinic hangs for anything from 30-60 mins, not allowing you to cancel the upload - the only way out seems to be a reboot.
Like yourself, I've also posted on this before - not had any solution come up yet.
Lets hope someone has the answer.

[Redspan]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply. I have been some more changes today and almost every upload attempt (dozens) has resulted in Actinic hanging and a ctrl-alt-dlt to clear the program and start the upload again. The only few that have worked are those where there are one or two files to upload i.e. minor changes.

I can't see that this is due to the hour of the day as I have experienced this early in the morning too. What's more it hangs on the upload of the first file, so it's not as if the session is being closed by the ISP as some sort of penalty for sending too much or overusing the link.

This is a serious problem that is taking up a lot of time and effort. I should be able to upload cleanly without a hitch after every change. I hope Actinic devote some resource to finding a solution.

Regards,
Ben

[Mike Hughes]

I can't remember where we ended on this in the past but i'm using BT ADSL with a dlink ethernet modem and dlink router without any problems at all.

If I remember rightly you're using a router (cisco ?) and the problem could be that while it's something Actinic is doing it's hard to identify a fault where it's down to an interaction between various bits of equipment.

Have you tried bypassing your router and connecting the PC straight to the DSL modem?

Mike

[Redspan]

Mike,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I have. I have tried uploading over a 56K modem. Although this is slightly more reliable it's obviously slower and fails as well.

The router is in fact a SpeedTouch510. I also have a D-Link Ethernet modem which I will try.

BTW - we will stock D-Link from next week!

Regards,
Ben

[Mike Hughes]

It's definitely worth trying to solve the problem. I don't think I could cope without the speed and convenience of I get with DSL and Actinic.

I've used a speedtouch USB modem (ADSL) with two different hosts in the past without problems and I'm now using the dlink ethernet modem (DSL) with a broadband router. Again without any problems.

It might also be worth trying another host just in case that's where the problem is. I'm sure there must be a way of building a quick site on a 30 day trial just to test out the transfer. If you want some space for a test I can let you use a domain and server space that I'm not using at the moment.

Mike

[fleetwood]

Ben
This may be just coincidence, but was having upload problems again this afternoon, so I thought I'd try messing with network settings. I unchecked the USE PASSIVE FTP box in advanced network settings, and retried my upload and it shot through.

As I am using a hardware firewall, I had thought I needed to have passive ftp transfer selected, but descelecting it worked this time.

Maybe it was a one off, and will report back when I have more evidence, but might be worth a go if not already tried.

[NormanRouxel]

Another thing you can do (as a bit of a last resort) is to install the Standalone Server (as per Advanced Guide) on your own system.

Save all your current network settings to a text file and then reset those settings to point to your local server. If that uploads OK (and you can try it lots of time as it will be FAST) then it's probably nothing to do with Actinic but something outside your PC that's to blame.

Why a "last resort"? When you change your network settings back, Actinic will insist on doing a full site refresh (nothings changed on your real server but Actinic doesn't know this as it see that the settings have changed and forces the refresh on itself).

Norman

[fleetwood]

thanks Norman

I might have to try that, as guess what - the next upload after I posted here stalled again, so the unchecking of passive ftp box didn't solve anything!

[ocbon]

upload fails and hangs up

Hi all,

I am a newbie and hope this makes some sense. A lot of what I read in the posts is greek to me, so I really need detailed info.

I am having the same problem with www.agiftislove.com . i have tried updating, refreshing, unticking passive mode, compacting the catalog database.

Uploading numerous times got me to where it was sending bb000001.cgi

Other times, it got to A00012.cat

Very frustrating!!!

Could I delete all files in my cgi and then do an update or refresh. Which?

I was going to send a snapshot of www.agiftislove.com, but am a newbie and couldn't figure out how. Help on this would be appreciated also.

Only I have another site www.bonniesgifts.com which I am having no problems uploading at all.

For this reason, I don't think it could be my ISP because I am using the same ISP.

I am uploading through cable, not dial up, and using Windows XP.

[Tripwire]

We too get this problem, it doesn't make any difference if you select passive transfer or what time of the day you upload, what seems certain though is if Actinic has more than a few images and pages to upload it will timeout and like Redspan says will eventually come up with a message saying the connection has been dropped. If your waiting for an upload to take place and your in a rush it is a complete pain in the ass when it does this.
We are uploading over a LAN which is firstly running through winproxy then through a Robotics ADSL modem with built in hardware firewall. So the data is having to go through 2 firewalls which I thought might be the cause of the problem so I turned both off and still got the problem. I am not in a position to test Actinic plugged straight into a adsl modem so cannot say whether this would solve the issue, my guess is it's a problem with Actinic and the way it handles RAM. I have WS_FTP running ok over our network so Actinic should be no different, after all it's only FTP were talking about.

[Redspan]

Clearly this problem is known to many! I have just completed an upload that was started yesterday evening. It had eventually timed out and there was the "retry" message. Once clicked the rest went through without a hitch. Mind you, it could be because it's 7am. I'd like to try Norman's suggestion but frankly I don't have the time at the moment.

I've noticed that it sends a batch and then says "setting file permissions". If it hangs during the next batch then when re-started it begins with the start of the batch in which it hung i.e. it doesn't necessarily start all over again from the beginning.

ocbon - I doubt that deleting files will make any difference. Could you try with an analogue modem and see if that makes any difference? Just disable your LAN connection to your cable modem (Start/Connecto/Show All Connection/ and right click on your LAN icon and disable it), then use a modem to dial in.

I doubt that sending a snapshot will help either but for future reference it's File/Snapshot/Export Site.

TTFN
Ben

[Jan]

I have automation software that upload's Actinic unattended, if you loose your network connection and a dialog box is displayed it will click ok for you to force the reconnection.

In testing this product I have found that some servers will reconnect at this point and some servers will not, if the server will not reconnect then the upload will always fail.

My tests found that for my case it definately seemed to be server related rather than the ISP or anything to do with Actinic, I had the same site and the same ISP, some servers worked and others didn't. I don't know whether this is relevant to this discussion but thought that it was worth mentioning.

It you are having real problems it might be worth asking one or two of the well known Actinic hosts for a bit of trial space, so that you can test uploading your site with their server (you could use my automation mole to automatically upload it several times overnight as a test), if it works it would be worth moving, you would obviously have to pay for new hosting but it might be worth it to get rid of such an annoying problem.

Regards,

[Darren B]

Just to add my 2 penith worth, i have the same problems and have succesfully run actinic on a a standalone pc without any problems, well once i got it to work that is.

So it does seem to be more a server issue than anything else, maybe not enough resources on the web servers are given to ftp and overloading is quite common.

Cheers
Darren

[fleetwood]

I'm fairly sure its a server problem, BUT is there nothing that can be done from the Actinic programming side of things to prevent such long delays before reporting the fault, and giving a correct report to the actual problem.

Mine usually hangs (with no exit other than an alt-ctrl-del) unless I wait 15-30 mins for Actinic to respond - if Actinic was much quicker to report back the problem, and allow me to fix it, it wouldn't cause so much aggrevation.

The report back from Act is usually along the lines of "there seems to be a problem with permissions..." (will copy the exact message if required - plmk), yet when I check manually, my permissions are set up correctly, and it uploads correctly at a later time without me changing any settings.

So any idea why I am getting this incorrect permissions message? Is this just a default message if nothing else applies?