[FIXED] Haven't Received Confirmation for FTP Password

[Dr Neo Lao]

...is there a way to inform us when the problem is resolved?

The simplest way is to subscribe to this thread. You'll get an email every time somebody posts (which will probably be a lot) so it might get annoying. Otherwise, just check the Help Center every so often.

...if this problem isn't fixed soon, I'm probably going to have to go with one of the other comic hosting options out there.

That is totally understandable.

I am in the middle of doing an article on the relative strengths and weaknesses of all the different dedicated webcomic hosts available. So far, I have found seven that are dedicated, free webcomic hosts: Comic Genesis, DrunkDuck, ComicSpace, SmackJeeves, ComicFury, WebComicsNation and ComicDish. Of the ones that I have tried so far (in the last few days) Smack Jeeves and WebComicsNation appear to be the "best" by being super-easy to get up and running. If you demanded that I recommend just one, I'd say go with Comic Fury. It is still relatively new, but they have a really intuitive interface and are dead easy to use.

However, the main difference that I have noted between the other six and CG is that CG gives you a lot more freedom on how the site looks. WebComicsNation is the most flexible for design layout, but it is a little cryptic and hard to get hold of initially.

Of course, the best option is to go for paid hosting, but that is a different kettle of fish...

...I will stand behind comicgenesis since despite the setbacks ive had with them...

Thank you for your support. The "main" advantage that CG appears to offer to the average new user is the size of the community. There is a lot of discussion, comraderie, support and help available. Drunk Duck has a large community as well, and has a built-in commenting system which helps for cross-promotion with other users.

...to showing an all black page with no apparent options to click or do anything.

That is a known bug in the default template. There is an extra exclamation point that makes the comic display as all black in IE (but not in other browsers, your comic shows up on FireFox). There isn't anything that you can do about it at the moment, but once FTP passwords are going again, you'll be able to fix that in a few minutes.

I've already gone to another site. Using one of the default templates, I was up and running with complete access in five minutes.

I'm glad you were able to get up and running. Of the other six webcomic hosts that are currently available, I was able to go from arriving on their home page to having a strip up and on display in under twenty minutes on five of them. I would have been faster, but I was writing down notes as I went. That's how it ought to be.

Out of idle curiosity, which host did yo go with? I'd like some feedback on how you go with them, what you thought of them and what you thought the pros and cons of said host are. Most hosts provide the same thing but slightly differently so one host might be great for one person but not so good for another person. Are there any specific features (other than being able to sign up so easily) that you are looking for in a host?

[Aldran]

I tried joining Drunk Duck, and it told me my username (Gathion) is inappropriate. Never found out why.

Sort of a different question, for those who may have used other means of posting their comic while waiting for Comic Genesis: You can upload comics to appear at earlier dates, right? I've been posting my comic at DeviantArt since mid-January, and was planning to just have my CG account pick up at the same point and just put all the earlier comics in the archive. I assumed that as long as they were labeled correctly, they would just show up under the earlier dates, but I wanted to make sure.

[STrRedWolf]

Okay, I'm working on it. Let me get all these users together.

In the meanwhile, if folks can check if their site is already up but inaccessible via FTP, let me know. Your site will always be chosenUserNameHere.comicgenesis.com. If it's up, and you can get a new password through this old utility let me know.

Also, if you're emailing from Yahoo! Mail, let me know that too -- although you may want to yell at them for not letting CG mail through.

[somestrangeflea]

Mine has been live since Feb 2. Just requested a new password. Got nothing. And not on Yahoo!.

[Necrospawn0]

http://majestic7.comicgenesis.com/

its been up for a while... but ya, the email didnt send to me when i tried it just now, does gmail have any issues with cg emails?

[STrRedWolf]

That's odd. Gathion and Comiccracker is the only one with Yahoo accounts.

In any case, I've just adjusted the code so that future applicants should get their first passwords, barring any problems between us and their ISP's servers.

[STrRedWolf]

Mine has been live since Feb 2. Just requested a new password. Got nothing. And not on Yahoo!.

You're on Hotmail. There's nothing much we can do about Microsoft except have you yell at them. We've tried to contact them to find out what we're doing wrong but they aren't listening.

http://majestic7.comicgenesis.com/

its been up for a while... but ya, the email didnt send to me when i tried it just now, does gmail have any issues with cg emails?

Nope, check it again or check the Spam trap. I have my own comic hosted here hooked up with my Gmail account and after a minute got the password reset.

[Dr Neo Lao]

I don't know if any of the code has been changed, but it still isn't sending out emails.

The activation email for new registrations? Arrived in my Hotmail/Live inbox in about 47 seconds.
The Welcome email? First we had a problem were that one wasn't being sent out. Once that was fixed, the email arrived straight away.
The "confirm changed password" email? So far has never arrived.

As far as I am aware, no new accounts since December have been able to activate their FTP password. However, since the end of Jan when the Welcome Email was fixed, all applicants have their accounts set up and their sample comic viewable via a browser.

I don't know if this is possible, but can you see which of the current comics have updated? I'm pretty sure that anyone who did get their FTP password would have been updating and would not have come into the Help Center to say "yes, I got my password" but I would have expected at least one person to come in saying "hi, I'm new - how do I do such-and-such?"

[MagooChris]

I just tried the password generator again, and still nothing (ameliasamulet using gmail).

STrRedWolf, you say to use "this old utility" is there a new utility that we don't know about that might be working?

[Aldran]

I just tried the password generator again, and still nothing (ameliasamulet using gmail).

STrRedWolf, you say to use "this old utility" is there a new utility that we don't know about that might be working?

Isn't that the one the confirmation e-mails sent us to for putting in our passwords in the first place?

Also, is there anything else we should be doing on our end? You already know my info, but I wanted to make sure if there's anything else.

[Dr Neo Lao]

To my knowledge, until members get their FTP password, there isn't a lot you can do.

You can upload comics to appear at earlier dates, right?

Correct. You can upload comics with the date format YYYYMMDD.jpg (or png or gif) and that date can be today, in the future or in the past. If you have a dozen comics ready to go that you wanted shared from the start of the year, just specify the date you wnat them to appear on and all the comics earlier than today will be added on the next update.

I don't know how far back one can go. I had the idea of doing a Victorian Steam-Punk style comic and giving all the updates dates in the 1800's, but I don't know if the CG system will accept that.

...is there a new utility that we don't know about that might be working?

STrRedWolf is currently also working on the new version of the software that runs behind the scenes. The place he referred to as "old utility" is still the current one you should be using when changing the FTP password for your comic account(s).

[Mitz]

eternalflame, using gmail

Tried again, no joy, nothing in my spam filter either. I think we've established the utility is completely borked.



Dr. Neo, I went with DrunkDunk, having dug through the forums of it and SmackJeeves, and liking what I saw at the Duck better of the two. Been tempted to do multiple mirrors, just to see which site is better for my comic overall, and it's not always easy from an outside perspective. I'll keep you apprised.


Mitz

[DeadCaL]

Mine has been live since Feb 2. Just requested a new password. Got nothing. And not on Yahoo!.

You're on Hotmail. There's nothing much we can do about Microsoft except have you yell at them. We've tried to contact them to find out what we're doing wrong but they aren't listening.

Are you saying that Hotmail won't even process the Emails? I've got Comic Genesis on my safe list, and have been regularly checking the Junk folder.

My URL simonthescaryghost.comicgenesis.com is up, but it's the last password Email that's foiling my plan.

[Imatron]

When the comic ftp is up and running and I can fix the black page glitch, at which part of the code do I look at to remove the extra eclamation point?

Also, in the index template file, can I have two seperate html files on the same page, one within the body of the other? Im, hoping I can put that code you helped me assemble right in the middle of that, but would I have to remove the base html code in the template, and if I did, would that affect the keentag system or other important functions?

Would the site work just fine if I removed all that extra coding with the original template's set html vtuff and just used the html code (that specifies the html for the user's browser) you provided for the skin, and would the keentags work when just plugged in the middle of that without being within the original html?

[Aldran]

I don't know how far back one can go. I had the idea of doing a Victorian Steam-Punk style comic and giving all the updates dates in the 1800's, but I don't know if the CG system will accept that.

Archiving comics by the date of the period they take place in...that'd be funny if it worked, especially if you had a Time Traveling comic going on, though keeping things linear would be a pain in the butt, for sure.

[Night Haunter]

sorry guys I will come back when this is all fixed, I feel weird signing up for two sites with the same comic, but, (shrugs) you do what you gotta do.

[Aerones]

I'm posting just to keep my name on the "My page is up but still no password email and no access through FTP" list.

The page has been up at descent.comicgenesis.com for a about a week now. I tried the link to "this old utility" and it told me the email was sent, but I have not received it yet. I couldn't log in through FTP before and this has not changed either. My email address is through gmail and I received the other emails in the signup process just fine.

[thefirstteam]

If you demanded that I recommend just one, I'd say go with Comic Fury. It is still relatively new, but they have a really intuitive interface and are dead easy to use.

I've been following this thread, since my account is one of those affected, and I just want to say that although there isn't much detail about how/when the problem will be fixed, you've still been very helpful. Politely addressing the complaints and keeping us up to date with the information you can dig up is better than I would have hoped for from a volunteer facing a mass of unhappy users (on the Internet, it's usually reasonable to expect to be dealing with a bunch of pricks, so I've been pleasantly surprised). Thank you for all your help.

And to give an opinion about other hosts, I've found that WebComicsNation is very easy if you're not computerly-inclined, but is horrible if you want even scant amounts of customization. I don't know if it's my browser or their website, but whenever I enter HTML into their "HTML-friendly" editor, it comes out as plain text. It's great for getting up and running quickly, but the layout just screams "free hosting default" and doesn't look as professional as a well-built custom layout (thus my interest in CG).

[Dr Neo Lao]

...whenever I enter HTML into their "HTML-friendly" editor, it comes out as plain text.

It may have something to do with how the text is encoded. If you use MSWord or some other high-level typing program, it might be exporting it (when you copy + paste) as its internal code rather than basic text (for example, the "greater than" symbol which is > might be copied as either > or > - both of which will show the symbol > on the final page, rather than the closing tag that you need for html code).

Try NotePad (or equivalent if you are on another OS), or use the existing text editor but save as ... uh ... I think it's Unicode Utf-8 that you need. I think.

Thank you for all your help.

You're welcome.

Here's another bit of bad news for you thefirstteam - you have a lower case letter as the first letter in your username. This means that you won't be able to log into SiteAdmin. You will need to either ask one of the Admins to change your name from thefirstteam to Thefirstteam or you will need to re-register on the forum. This will not affect your comic account, so simply re-registering on the forum would be the easiest way to fix it. Just register as The first team or The1stteam or something and you'll be good to go once the FTP password thingy is fixed. (note that you won't be able to register with Thefirstteam because the forum considers thefirstteam and Thefirstteam to be the same user. SiteAdmin however, considers the two as two users which is why it won't let you in with thefirstteam).

...especially if you had a Time Traveling comic going on, though keeping things linear would be a pain in the butt...

Ha! That is an awesome idea. It would be impossible to do with the CG system, but there are a couple of webcomic php scripts (if one was hosting on a paid server) which let you do something like that. Hard, but not impossible.

...which part of the code do I look at to remove the extra eclamation point?

I don't have a copy of the default template (I too am waiting for FTP password activation) - once I do I'll be updating the CGWiki to explain this problem. So you know, the extra exclamation mark is in the style sheet. When you can, find this bit of the code (at the top of both templates):

Code: Select all

<style type="text/css">
<!--
body {
    
        color:#ffffff;background-color:#000000;
	margin:0px;
	}
	
	//--!>
</style>

And replace the //--!> with //--> and it'll show up in Internet Explorer.

Would the site work just fine if I removed all that extra coding with the original template's set html vtuff and just used the html code (that specifies the html for the user's browser) you provided for the skin, and would the keentags work when just plugged in the middle of that without being within the original html?

The templates are 100% customizable. You can delete everything in the default template and start from scratch. The only things that you do need to have are the ***advertisement*** KeenTag above your comic and a mesage similar to "This comic is hosted on Comic Genesis (link) a free host for webcomics". Those two things are how you "pay" for your free account (note that these two things need to be on every page, including pages that don't have comics (such as character pages, about pages and so on).

So yes, you can totally remove the code and drop in your own. That's one of the strengths of CG over other hosts.

It just depends on how much you are willing to "get your hands dirty" with the html as to whether this will be a benefit or a hindrance.

[Trelk]

I'm just tossing my name into the hat here. I've had the exact same problem. username: asthedierolls email: gmail.

I'd also just like to say that I appreciate the time you've been taking to address these concerns even if you can't get them fixed immediately. I personally intend to stand by you as well. I may go to another site until you've gotten this sorted out but I prefer the customization you offer.