Reply from hosting provider regarding RapidWeaver

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As I mentioned yesterday, I had a long day trying to get my hosting set up with RW.

My hosting company basically gave up yesterday, but I said if RW didn’t work with them, I’d find a host that does. They then promised to look into it a bit more.

Below is the reply I’ve just received.

Neil,

I’ve done some extensive testing on this, including setting up an entirely separate server and running tests with both TLS and plaintext. Plaintext has no issues at all, and as expected the full 6 connections can be used and operate absolutely fine.

During testing I’ve noticed several anomalies with how Rapidweaver operates over TLS, including reporting that authentication failed when it actually passed (I can see this from the server side). Sometimes it publishes over TLS with one connection, sometimes it doesn’t, in each case the server doesn’t report an error to the client so it’s the application considering it to be failed. Even hitting the ‘test’ button in Rapidweaver fails, but then succeeds to publish correctly (so testing fails but publishing works - sometimes). Rapidweaver even crashed several times during TLS negotiation.

My conclusions are that the Rapidweaver application is failing to operate correctly over TLS encrypted connections in any way suitably.

TLS and encryption in general are now an industry requirement, including for PCI DSS compliance, so this is an issue you would connecting to almost any FTPS service.

Unfortunately, because this is a client problem, it’s not something we can account for on the server side.

So it appears that my host is not compatible.

By the way, what he’s saying is true. It works sometimes, but only with one connection used.

Could it be possible that it just won’t work with my host? If not, I’m happy to look for another.

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If it is possible to switch, Chillidog (@barchard) is a well-regarded host around these parts and he knows the ins and outs of Rapidweaver. https://www.chillidoghosting.com

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I have RW websites running great on a variety of hosts including GoDaddy, Blue Host and A2 Hosting. Never tried Chillidog but I hear good things about it everywhere.

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Chillidog and @barchard is amazing. I’ve been using it for maybe 4-5 years and they have great support.

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Some really helpful advice from you all, thanks a lot.

This morning I bought Stacks 3, Foundry and RapidCart so I’ve been busy messing around with those all day and will be for the foreseeable future.

Then I’ve been having trouble connecting to my host, and in fairness they’ve been really helpful. It seems that connecting using Cyberduck might be a good solution for now. Do many of you use an FTP client to upload and update your sites?

Apart from the connection problem, I’m more than happy with my current host. I have about 10 WordPress sites with them and they’re blazing fast. But I’d like to host a RW site with them as I’m going to pretty much ditch WordPress. If I can upload and update RW sites easily enough, I might stick with them.

Thanks to you all.

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I almost exclusively export to local disk and upload. I like to see exactly what is uploading and I like to actually see the files on my server. I use Yummy Ftp with great success. I do a scheduled upload at 5:55 each morning. It also has a droplet app ( I use for my images to my image directory) and a folder watcher app where any folder change will upload. But my core is simply export then then standard manual upload so I can see it happen. Comforting!

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I used to only publish straight from RW, but at some point in the 7.x release, something happened and it’s been flaky every now and then. When it works, it’s really fast, but more than often it either chokes on the very last file which would probably indicate a poor handshake with the server… The savior is filezilla for me :slight_smile:

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Thanks Greg and William,

It’s good to know that using FTP is a good alternative.

I’ll have a look at Yummy Ftp.

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@NeilUK The burning question is: Can you connect and Publish using an FTP App? If so then then your ISP has uncovered some reasons why RW doesn’t publish. I think it would be valuable to send your ISP’s feedback into RM.

I gave on on the RW a long time ago and always use Forklift FTP this is fast and flawless. As others has said, it’s goo to se whats going on when you do a sync to your server.

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@webdeer I have no problems at all using an FTP app.

One thing I noticed last night is that I didn’t enter the port number in the RapidWeaver FTPS window, so that might make a big difference. I’ll be ready to try again in an hour or 2 and I’ll post the results here.

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@SteveB Workflow is this:
Setup Forklift and store each site with server details and location of your Exported RW folder as a Favourite. Forklift has a dual pane Finder window so when you click on a Favourite the last pane shows the Export folder and the right shows the server folder to load to.

In RW I just Export or Export Changes and then hit Sync on Forklift. Sorted.

This works very well for me because I like to see the contents and also keep an eye on files to be updated.

There are many ways to setup Forklift (and Transmit AFAIK) but the whole process is quick, informative and woks flawlessly.

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I’d be happy to have you on board if you’re interested. Let me know if you’re interested in trying out Chillidog :slight_smile:

Greg

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@lucas we need to change this :wink:

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