CGI thinks pics/css files are in a phantom directory!

[elfinp]

This is bizarre. I can't think of anything I might have done although I have done a lot of recent editing. My entire website was displaying fine, shopping cart, checkout and all using my own edited versions of the Actinic template I started with. So far no problem. My site displayed fine through all sections. Now however when I do anything involving a cgi script it appears to be missing a template to work from. Feel free to go and look - www.princessstores.co.uk - clicking on the 'View Basket' link at the top is a prime example of extreme ugliness. And its Payday. And I just sent out my fortnightly newsletter! What have I done??? And how, oh how can I make it better? I'm reasonable net literate but scripts are beyond my sphere of knowledge.

Thanks, in desperation

elfin_p (for princess... I'm lazy :P )

EDIT: OK, it would appear that it is treating a page I put up today (newsletter.html) as a directory and the pictures in my basket at least have properties which place them in an /acatalog/newsletter directory. I would assume it also thinks that my css file is there as well given the icky text formatting, or lack thereof. Which would explain why it can't find the relevant template (in that there isn't a /newsletter directory - its an html page - but how do I stop it thinking there is? Granted I could make the dir and copy all relevant files into it but I prefer fixing things to patching... The other reason for not just accepting it thinks there is a dir there and adding files to a created directory is I have absolutely no idea what it might need beyond the pics and css. I'm going to do it as a temporary measure but I really need to know how to fix it properly!

[NormanRouxel]

It works fine for me. Search, Cart and Checkout seem OK. I can't find a Newsletter page though.

Norman

[elfinp]

Thats because I uploaded enough files to make it look acceptable into the directory it thinks its reading from (which I manually created for that purpose). Try going to any other website page from the checkout / basket - it sends you to that page *in the /newsletter directory* which doesn't exist! Oh and the newsletter html page isn't linked to - its for mailing list subscribers only and therefore having it linked from the rest of the site was a bit pointless. Its at http://www.princessstores.co.uk/acat...ewsletter.html but I suspect not part of the problem in itself.

[elfinp]

CURRENT SITUATION (OR WHY IT LOOKS FINE)

The problem is still there in that the cgi script which runs checkout and the shopping basket seems to think it is in a directory called 'newsletter'. or /newsletter/cgi-bin would be more accurate.

Now the reason it looks better than described above is because I manually created the directory it was looking for and shoved my pictures and css file in there. This was purely cosmetic, so it at least looks OK. I also went through the relevant template and changed all my menu URLs to their full path (previously it was just the filename - ie calling a same-directory file) - so they're no longer aiming at a directory called newsletter (which they were doing because the CGI generated page was acting as though it were in a directory called 'newsletter').

However the generated links in my checkout and basket pages - the ones that I don't know how to find as they're NETQUOTEVARS I assume are still pointing towards a /newsletter directory - going into the basket and holding the mouse over "Stores Home" or "Terms & Conds" shows this. So cosmetically its looking better but the problem root is just as present as it was before and I need to get rid of it. Or at the very least figure out how to manually edit my top menu bar links to their full URL.

I'm not sure how clear I'm being. I certainly don't understand why its doing this or why it thinks it should be in a phantom directory. I'm worried that my entire site may have been corrupted somehow

[NormanRouxel]

I see absolutely nothing wrong still.

If I view the cart all the links correctly refer to the appropriate places. E.g. Viewing the Cart and mouseover the Stores Home link shows the URL:-

http://www.princessstores.co.uk/acatalog/index.html

Also when viewing the Cart the page source has the correct BASE HREF tag namely:-

<BASE HREF="http://www.princessstores.co.uk/acatalog/">

And finally searching the source of that page shown no occurences of "newsletter" or even the fragment "news".

Perhaps your looking at old buggy versions in your browsers cache. Try hitting the "Refresh" button and see if that clears it up.

Norman

[elfinp]

Oh. I sleep for a few hours and its no longer doing it... obviously something I tried did actually fix it. I wonder what!

Thanks for looking

[Gill]

Hi,

I know you've sorted it now but I've had a similar problem in the past with actinic and have been just as frustrated. When you do think you have fixed it, make sure you delete your temporary internet files before you test it again as you can have a cache of the old pages that get used. (and do CTRL F5 when you view the pages).

Secondly, and this bizarre - if you do your own picture editing etc, open a few of the files and resave them - obviously if you've compressed them you may want to save the originals again rather than the compressed files.

Have no idea why this works, but it did for me.

Gill

[elfinp]

Thanks Gill,

There were two possibilities that I thought could vaguely be something to do with and it is indeed fixed now I changed them. One, my new section (called 'Newsletter' had a 'product' with the same name. And while I don't see why that should matter - and indeed have used such sections before - its vaguely possibly something buggy happened with it. Secondly, I did have an unclosed table tag set in said product - so I'd opened my tr, td and table tags but forgotten to close any of them at the end of the 'product' description (obviously not an actual product, was just using it as a base for my newsletter). Fixed that, and changed the product name and now it apparently works. I also deleted said section, uploaded, then undeleted it and uploaded again *shrugs*... one of em obviously did something.

I just don't understand why it would have done it! Its really frustrating. I hate not knowing why things happen!
But happy its fixed

[elfinp]

Hmmmmm.....

It would appear, after hours of sweat and tears, that the problem was my computer, not my website. It just happened again and I (finally!) thought to check it on the kids computer... lo and behold, not a problem in sight. So something is inserting directory names into my URL. Apparently using the name of the first page I click on when going to my site. Which sounds nastily virusy to me and while I shouldn't have viruses on the machine - its certainly protected, all things are possible. So off to run norton, adaware and spybot in swift succession...

[cdicken]

Steph

Your problem is down to the shopping session on your PC being linked to a session file with the wrong 'Catalog URL' stored in it. This will disappear in a few hours - or you can go to 'Help | Troubleshooting' and click 'Purge Session Files' to manually remove it (this will have the effect of ending any shopping sessions at the moment, however).

[elfinp]

Enlightenment! You would not believe how many hours I spent stressing over that... is there any way to stop it happening in future?

Best wishes,
e_p

[cdicken]

is there any way to stop it happening in future?

It only really happens when you are developing your store (and testing different upload URLs etc.) Once your store is stable, it will not happen again.