[ADMIN] Post Move Woes: Siteadmin, Autoupdate, and others...

[Brigid]

Sorry for the double post, but I want to make sure this gets attention. Uploading the comics from Filezilla to the workspace folder has not helped!

[Pitt]

Hello, I'm having a small problem that I'm not sure how to fix. I'm trying to upload a news.html file to public_html to get a newsbox setup at and thats how the tutorial says to do it. anyway, when I try to upload to public_html I get this error



I get this error when I try to upload anything to public_html and the files upload fine to anywhere else. Any idea on how to fix this? Or is it a server side problem. I'm using the newest version of SmartFTP

[Comicsareforlovers]

When I updated my index and some of my images weren't working, I just figured that something had gone wrong in the coding and accepted that my page was going to look more simplistic than I had originally anticipated. However, when I redesigned my index and uploaded it, along with some new comics, I first began to run into significant problems. The upload appeared to work without a hitch. I prompted a full page update and waited. After two days or so my page still hadn't changed. I tried logging in to see what was holding it up and to possibly prompt a new update. I tried logging into site admin with the correct name and password. This is the response I got:

Forum Username mylifeisawebcomic not valid!
You must have a ComicGenesis Forum login (or you entered a bad username or password, it is CASE SENSITIVE.)

Please see below for possible correct spellings:

Logout to try again (hit cancel)

*Note: the only alteration from this error message- occasionally it would tell me that alternate spellings of my login name would be mylifeisawebcomic... which is the exact sign in name I have been using this whole time.*

I then tried to log into the forums to ask for help. I have set the same username for both my comic and my forum account so there would be no confusion on my end between the two sets of names and passwords. I was told to try and log in again because I had given an incorrect/invalid username and/or password.

I sent an email for assistance and waited. I got the generic response telling me to post my question in the forum help threads (to which I could not log in).

I created a new forum account (comicsareforlovers) so I could log into here and post.

Then I did a LOT of reading. I read up on various responses to primarily the same problem. I could not try the log out/ log in again solution, as I could not log in to begin with.

I read Clampy's message on page 3 and thought "huzzah! This sounds like my problem exactly!" I followed STrRedWolf's suggestion of using my new account to log into Siteadmin... Alas, nothing. It simply would prompt me to sign in a new name and password every time I would enter the login information.

So I went off to college, having not been able to work on my comic for about a month, with new entries simply piling up on my harddrive. Now that I am more settled in and some of the fresh batch of chaos has died down, I would REALLY like to get working on my page again!

I am seriously considering just starting a new comic with my secondary login account. However, I would really prefer to keep my original name and URL rather than trying to make a new comics account with this name and try to hook it into my old comic.

I have never gotten the broken browser response. Even so, I have been using Firefox primarily and have attempted to log in through IE. Neither have worked.

Thanks for your help![/quote]

[Dr Neo Lao]

I assume that this is your comic.

All the images appear to be working, so I'm going to assume that that has all been sorted.

You say that the "I upload new index and nothing changed" problem occurred around a month ago, which is around when the server was doing weird things and CG did it's server changeover. There were quite a lot of hiccups, but most of those have been sorted now.

Q: Do you still have the original emails with your registration details?

It's possible that your old account was deleted (forum account). This would have happened if you had been registered but had made no posts. Try re-registering with the same name again. If it lets you, you were deleted. If it says 'username taken' then your account may have something else wrong with it. You may need to ask one of the admins to re-set your password for you.

If it did let you, then all you need to do is re-add your comic to your forum account and you should be good to go. And make sure you make a few posts.

I sent an email for assistance...

You probably already know this, but emails are (almost) never responded to, and if there is a response, it's usually "post in the forums". You'll get better, faster and nicer replies in the forum.

This is because CG does not have a dedicated support staff.

With your comic's password, first try and access your account through an ftp program with your comic's username / password.

If you can't get in, go to the lost password manager and request a new password. It'll be sent to the email that you used when you registered. Details on how to do this can be read here.

Last thing: in case you didn't already know, make sure that when you try to log into siteadmin that it ends with .com and not .com/login.php? - if it has the php bit on the end it will not work.

[NakedElf]

It's possible that your old account was deleted (forum account). This would have happened if you had been registered but had made no posts.

This seems like a really bad problem on our end. First we make people make a forum account just to access their comics (which makes no sense if you're just trying to sign up for a comic,) and then we go deleting forum accounts if people who only signed up for the account in the first place because they were trying to make a comic don't go posting in a forum they didn't want to join the the first place.

At the very least, it seems like people should be *told* that it works this way when they join up.



@comicsareforlovers: Hitting 'logout' can still work even if you're not logged in. It just makes your computer realize that you're not logged in.

[Kisai]

This seems like a really bad problem on our end. First we make people make a forum account just to access their comics (which makes no sense if you're just trying to sign up for a comic,) and then we go deleting forum accounts if people who only signed up for the account in the first place because they were trying to make a comic don't go posting in a forum they didn't want to join the the first place.

At the very least, it seems like people should be *told* that it works this way when they join up.

People figure that out when they try to login to the wiki anyway.

See the problem is that the current signup script was designed well before the current siteadmin system, so it simply doesn't have the means to check or ask if you are currently logged into the forums. The next version of the signup script is [supposed] to require that you be logged into the forums and generate an annoucement post or something to that idea that would solve it. This is still all 'pending' at the moment. The auto-deletion only happens once in a while, while certain criteria is deleted everytime someone logs in.

[SpriteMeister]

Okay, so I've been gone for a while (since February), and I've had to create a new Forum account, since I was only using the old one for SiteAdmin, and not posting. I'm still using the Butch FTP that I was using before (http://siteadmin.comicgenesis.com:8080/ ... eb-ftp.cgi), and it seems to be auto-updating just fine with the settings I had placed before with my old account. But with my new account (I can log in just fine), I'm trying to "Add a ComicGenesis account to siteadmin". I put in my FTP username and password (knowing it's case sensitive), and I get this message:
Your browser did not return the expected response SpriteMeister

Referred from: http://siteadmin.comicgenesis.com/
User Agent(Browser) reports it is: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130
No Proxy Detected
Your Actual IP Address: 216.99.201.207
Your browser is broken
Browser status: MSIE 7: Working
Firefox 2.0.0.4: Working
Safari 3.0.2: Working
Opera 9.21 (8776): Working
Nintendo DS Opera: Not working
Please use Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Opera or something that supports HTTP Digest Authentication compliant with RFC2617!
Also you get this if you entered the wrong password, or have never logged out of forums.comicgenesis.com and back in after July 22nd 2007

Logout to try again (hit cancel)


I remember reading about a change in FTP happening around June, and would like to know if this has anything to do with it. If this turns out to be the problem, would using a different FTP site fix it? If so, which one?

Oh, and I'm using Mozilla (1.2.1, I think), if that has any bearing on the situation.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Dr Neo Lao]

I had a lot of problems starting to creep into Mozilla since it is no longer being upgraded / supported. Changed to Firefox (which is fundamentally the same thing) and haven't had any of those types of problems any more.

It may be an issue with your login into the forums. Try this:

1. Log out of the forums (like, totally - even close the browser {all windows / tabs}).
2. Log into the forum (make sure that you type your username and password by hand, that they are proper and that you have the capitals right).
   
   This is because the forum generates a key or something that the siteadmin page uses to verify your name / password. If you log into the forums with spritemeister (which it will let you) instead of SpriteMeister then the key generated won't match the one done by siteadmin when you log in with the proper capitalization (siteadmin wants caps done properly, the forum doesn't care).
3. Once you are sure that you are logged into the forums properly, log out again.
4. Go to the siteadmin page and add ?&logout at the end of the url (whether you were logged in or not). Make sure that the siteadmin page does not have any .php thingies on the end - it should be http://siteadmin.comicgenesis.com/
5. Once you are logged out of siteadmin, close all browsers again. You should now be totally and fully logged out of everything.
6. Open your browser and log into the forums.
7. Open a new window / tab and log into siteadmin.
8. Hopefully, that lot should have worked. If it didn't, then there is something else hindering you.

You should now be able to add your comic to your new forum account. Also, it seems that the on-line ftp page ain't what she used to be. There have been several people who have experienced problems with it (and a lot who use it without any problems at all). I advise getting an ftp program directly onto your computer.

[Rkolter]

I know we've seen this issue before, but I thought I would add it (running Windows XP pro sp2, IE60sp2):

I tried uploading today's comic via Siteadmin's Upload option. Then I did a regular manual update.

Ten minutes later, the update still hadn't happened (tried ctrl-f5 for hard refresh too).

So, I said ok, let's upload it the normal way - went in through CoreFTP as I've done for years. The file was in workspace/comics as I expected, but when I tried to write over it, I could not! The file permissions were mis-set.

I was able to delete the copy on the server though; and then upload. And a manual regular update then worked normally.

There is definately something not right with the web upload file feature in siteadmin.


Also, I am hitting a LOT of ComicGenesis comics that I must hard refresh to see the new comic for; I never had to do that prior to the new server implementation and as the network admin where I work, I can be pretty sure nothing has changed in the environment at my end.

It seems really hit or miss. Some comics I do not have to hard refresh ever (hopeandlaurie.comicgenesis.com), some I had to do so one time (nanda.comicgenesis.com), and some I have to do so every time I wish to see the new comic (indepos.comicgenesis.com). There are some that are unreliable - some days I have to hard refresh, some days I do not (mansionofe.comicgenesis.com).

[Kisai]

I really don't know what's going on with the file permissions, the batch job is supposed to be fixing them so they are writeable. Unless Kelly has something trying to do the same and not working, I don't know.

The 'refresh' issue is simply the web browser being told to only check the (index) page once per 24 hour period. Maybe this needs to be tightend down to 12 hours or something. The intent is to reduce the amount of reloads from people waiting for the comic to refresh at update time, but mostly for the archives to stay cached so the browser isn't pulling them fresh everytime.

[C.w.]

I know it's low on the priority list, but does anyone know anything about the "XML error: EntityRef: expecting ';' at line xxxx" stats problem? It's going on three months now - i'd really like to be able to see my search strings, if it's not too much of a problem - google analytics doesn't seem to pick up nearly as many.

[Gloria]

Regarding the "hard refresh" issue, a few of my readers have contacted me telling me that the main page is "stuck" at an older date for them (as far back as July 22 in at least one case!) and they have to go through the archive page to see newer comics. I told them they should try clearing out their browser's cache or something, but other than that I don't know what to tell them. I'm wondering if there are other comics/readers having this problem, and if people are checking the page and, seeing it show an old comic assume it's not updating any more and just move on, not bothering to try refreshing or anything...
Myself, I always have to refresh the page on my own comic.

There isn't anything *I* can do to fix things for my page, though, is there?

[Dr Neo Lao]

Suggestion to all with the 'new page not showing' problem:

Add a note to your index stating that at the moment, your comic has this problem and that the only way you know to work around it is for the reader to refresh. Let them know what your update schedule is and then stick to it.

Think of it as a temporary way of having an editor standing behind you demanding that you update by a given deadline, because your readers are all going to show up at the same time expecting to see your new pages.

Other than that, there isn't a whole lot that the authors can do, as far as I know...

[Gloria]

Well, I've been updating on the same days with extreme regularity for the past 7 years, so they should KNOW by now... I'll certainly put a notice to hit refresh, though.

Thanks!

[Kaourika]

I've been unable to login to siteadmin since the move. I know it's a bit late to complain now; it's just that I've been using the old-siteadmin when needed. But now I want to use a new-siteadmin only function.

So. Here's the error I'm getting.

Forum Username kaourika not valid!
You must have a ComicGenesis Forum login (or you entered a bad username or password, it is CASE SENSITIVE.)
Please see below for possible correct spellings:
kaourika

Here's my info:
http://joyride.comicgenesis.com
IE7
Windows XP SP2
No antivirus
Firewalls disabled

And this is what I was doing in an attempt to fix it:

If you're having problems getting into Siteadmin, try this (from Kisai):

1. Hit siteadmin.comicgenesis.com/?&logout but when it asks for a password, HIT CANCEL!
2. Go to the forums and log out of them. Then log back into them.
3. Go back to siteadmin and log in using the EXACT username and password you used for the forums. CASE IS SENSATIVE ON BOTH!

I must have tried that alone at least a dozen times. Failing that, I got a bit more elaborate about it, closing my browser window after logouts, clearing my cache/temp files after each attempt, and so on. Then I tried doing it all on another browser. Then, other computers.

Of course, I've verified correct case is being used, as well. (Not hard to do; both name and pass is all lowercase.) Since this problem is supposed to be about innacurate cases entered in the past being remembered, I can't understand why it still won't work on computers where I've never before attempted login.

The main complicating factor I can think of would be that I changed my password this morning (now about 12 hours ago). However, that was done BEFORE everything above. It was the first thing I did, since I supposed I just wasn't remembering my password correctly.

I've spent hours and hours trying different things in an effort to figure this out, so any suggestions on things to try are very much appreciated.

[Dr Neo Lao]

Hmmm... your case is a bit of an odd one because it's been mainly the people with capitals that have had difficulty.

For your situation, I don't know of any workarounds. The short story is that if you can log into the forums (you posted, so you can) then you *should* be able to log into siteadmin.

There's nothing that I can suggest...

[Kaourika]

Hmmm... your case is a bit of an odd one because it's been mainly the people with capitals that have had difficulty.

For your situation, I don't know of any workarounds. The short story is that if you can log into the forums (you posted, so you can) then you *should* be able to log into siteadmin.

There's nothing that I can suggest...

Thanks for the fast reply Although I'm probably screwed if you don't know anything about it I was under the impression that you held the secrets of the universe.

The only passwords I've ever had with caps are the ones it auto-generated for me on a lost password request. I promptly replaced them with all lowercase. (And I say 'them' because I even tried THAT twice.)

Yeah, I saw some circumstances where it wouldn't work for people who had just registered, but obviously that doesn't apply to me.

I just had a thought. Do you know if the forum login info is remembered for siteadmin by a cookie? Because the cookies on this forum have always been a bit funky for me. When I check Remember me, it still forgets me everytime I close the browser window. Does it do that for you, too, or is it something special about me? Mind you, I was opening siteadmin in a new tab to prevent logout on the last step, but still, maybe it indicates something strange about my system?

*yawn* Bed time for me now :0

[Dr Neo Lao]

Sorry, only for the local galaxy...

Hmm... those delicious cookies again.

*thinks out loud*

• You get the right rejection message, so obviously you are using the right siteadmin link.
• You have no capitals, so that eliminates 95% of the normal problems.
• Q: Do you use any special characters? Or just letters + numbers?
• It worked fine on the old server, but not on the new server... same software, different platform. Weird.
• You had the same problem on a variety of computers, so it's probably your account and not the server. Q: How much difference was there between your computer and the other computers? Did you try one that you knew was i) with a different OS ii) using a different ISP and iii) also able to login to siteadmin?
• On my computer, I run FireFox which auto-scrubs cookies and such each time the browser is closed, so your session ID should be kept as a cookie on your computer somewhere.

Actually, there is one main difference between the siteadmin on the old server and siteadmin on the new server. On the new server it uses http authentication rather than a html "fill in the blanks" form. This is more secure, but also more tempermental.

I can think of two things we can try:

1) You can pm me your login + password and I'll try to get into siteadmin from here (different computer, different browser, different ISP and different country).

2) I can set up a http authentication required section on my site and you can try logging in to that. If you can, it'll still be a CG faut, but if you can't, then it must be a browser / computer problem on your end.

[Kaourika]

Well, this error seems pretty out of this galaxy I suck so much.

Yup. =/ It's just good ol' http://siteadmin.comicgenesis.com/ .

No special characters in the PW; only letters and numbers. Tonight, I changed it to be only letters, just in case. Still no luck.

Unfortunately the 3 PCs I tested it on were all Windows XP with IE. One was garden variety XP, another was XP Tablet Edition, and my main setup is XP Pro. Furthermore, all were on my home LAN, so obviously the same ISP was used as well. Admittedly I don't know much about it, but I think the 'puters all being on the same LAN causes their IP adresses to be handled a bit abnormally? I don't understand how really, I just know that it always causes me trouble on P2P networks.

Tonight, I tried giving my login to two friends. One has a CG account herself; the other doesn't and had never attempted any sort of login before. Both got the same error I posted above.

The friend with the CG account I mention is getting the same error, ever since the move, like me. But she has caps in her name, so I'm guessing it's a past case error that the silly machine is latching on to (I walked her through the login-logout dance but forgot to have her clear her cookies n' such.). Anyway, she gave me her own info, and I tried to login with that... still nothing.

In any case, I'll PM you my login info. Good luck Thanks a TON for being so helpful.

[Dr Neo Lao]

Nope - I couldn't get in either...

I'd say that this one has reached the stage where it's okay to PM either Kisai or Stredwolf. Make sure you include relavent info and links to some of the supporting posts around here.

This one is beyond my ability to help.

Sorry...