Greetings! I’ve been using Rapidweaver since 2007 and have faced the first serious wall. I had a RW with Foundation website and nothing I could do would make it publish. Efforts to publish single pages created strange URLs on my website. I finally threw in the towel and spent the last week completely rebuilding my website in Foundary…and it won’t publish. Extensive dialog with TSOHost, and they say that RW is stopping the upload, not them (please excuse the non-tech language). They suggested I upload the new website using Filezilla. I tried this several times and when I change the name of the file that I upload to public_html the website appears EXCEPT for the homepage. So, I’m doing this wrong. I have accepted that I can no longer publish directly from Rapidweaver, but if anyone could help me with step by step instructions for uploading my website through Filezilla, that would be truly appreciated (I’ve Googled this but when it comes to the final ‘drag and drop’ and the files that need to be included, there are no actual instructions). I’ve been dead in the water for weeks now and this is a serious problem for my work, so any help is so appreciated. Thank you so much in advance.
What do you mean when you say ‘when I change the name of the file that I upload to public_html’.
What’s the file, what is its name and what are you changing it to?
Rob
Hello Rob, Thanks for getting in touch. I currently have my ‘old’ website in the public_html file. I drag and drop my new website into filezilla to upload, and it has the name of the file on my computer. So…I then rename the public_html file public_html2 and then the file with my new website I rename public_html so that it goes live. Clearly not working though;)
ps one of the problems I have is knowing what files to upload via FileZilla. If I do a back up…is it all those files? If I do that, I am missing the home page. Or do I upload the RW icon of my website…surely that wouldn’t have the actual files for the pages though. If I do both the backup files and the RW icon everything is a mess. I can’t think of anything else to try!
So have you still got the old website uploaded in the public_html directory?
Yes, I went and put it back so that I at least have a live website
OK, so how did you put the original site back up - via RW or Filezilla?
Rob
I’ve put the original website back up via my gridhost file manager and I’ve deleted the new website files (incorrectly) uploaded both through filezilla and through the gridhost file manager.
Sorry that wasn’t clear - I just renamed public_html2 back to public_html and that is how I got my old website back up. I didn’t delete the old website files and hope not to have to
It’s very hard to help without seeing the directory structure but I suspect your problems are arising from having two versions of the website up there.
Also, I don’t think you should have a FILE called public_html, you should have a FOLDER.
If it were me, I’d make sure I had a safe copy of the old website, stored as a project file on my Mac and then delete everything inside the public_html folder on the web server. Then I’d open the new website in RW and re-publish all files and see if that worked.
Rob
ditto what Robbeattle says… Sounds like your web server is set to have the files in the “public_html” folder on your web host account. Whether you upload with Rapidweaver or any ftp/sftp app you must direct the upload to go to that folder. You should never rename or change the “public_html” folder or the world will never see your files. When someone goes to your URL (website) everything is set on your host for files to be in that folder. Thus, when using Rapidweaver it must be configured to upload files to that same folder.
If “exporting” your site to local disk you can have the files anywhere. However, when you ftp them to the server you must direct them to “public_htm.” Thus, I suggest exporting them into a folder on your Mac named the same (public_htm). That folder should be in a folder named with your choice such as “My Website” etc. When you ftp up then files from your local “public_htm” folder are directed to go to your server “public_htm” folder. This setup just keeps things simple and consistent.
Hope this helps…
Hello Rob,
You are right…it is a public_html folder;) I am self taught in a bubble so don’t always have the right language to communicate with. I do have my old website on my computer, and the new one. It is a little scary to delete my website off of my server given that I don’t yet have a way of uploading the new website though. Are you saying that having both websites on my harddrive, with the same publishing ftp settings, might affect publishing the website to my server?
Thank you Greg. I think you are right and the person at TSOHost that assisted me didn’t think that through. She was saying that I could just rename the folder, but it didn’t work.
See my reply again… I added to it as you replied.
Thank you Greg. I just read your additional notes and I will try this. Just to be sure, you mean public_htm or public_html? Will this then leave the old files that are in the public_htm(l) folder, but only publish the ones that I am publishing now (the new website) or will I have to go back and delete the files for the old website?
“scary to delete” - I keep a backup of my website files on a pocket disk. You can use an ftp app to download all your “public_html” files to that pocket drive. If you need to you can then just ftp all the files back up. If you download all your files this has the advantage of backing up all the files on your site, such as log files, manually added files, etc.
“both websites on my hard drive… might affect publishing the website to my server” - Having different sets will not affect publishing. Publishing (what I call “uploading”) is nothing more that moving/copying files. So matter how many sets you have if you move the right files to the right place all will be fine.
Thank Greg, I was secretly hoping my direct Rapidweaver publishing/uploading would magically returned if I removed the publishing settings from the old website on the RW file. It was so easy to publish directly from RW, but I guess once I figure out this new method I’ll be set. I’ll give it a go and I let you know if it works. I really appreciate your help with this:)
Whatever your site uses. Different hosts define the “home” folder a bit differently. This is the folder that the “internet” looks at when people go to your site. It varies but public_htm and public_html are common. Just look at the files on your server and see what it is. When you purchased your site your host should have provided this information. or, if you have your ftp losing… just log in and see…
Ok thank you. I have to be extra careful as I both do and then really don’t know what I’m doing…the gaps inevitable in self education:) I’ll set to and fingers crossed it works.
Not sure I’m understanding your question. If you leave the same information in the RW “publishing” setup the files will go to that directory on your server. Repeated publishes of the same files/pages simply overwrites the old files. You are simply telling RW where to put the files you “publish.” So, yes, you can publish to your site from RW.