FTP Commander

[tjmarshall]

Hi All,

Does anyone in the forum use FTP Commander and if so, I have a question. When I first started using it a month ago and finally figured out how to upload my html index file to my online web page, it worked great. Now I have done some updated to my site in NVU, where I always do my work, and went to upload my saved file and it is not uploading. I am not seeing the little box that pops up after the upload is complete. However, I did get a sort of new file on the local connection side that said something like 'answer' something or other. Can anyone help me with this please? I have lost about 8 BizOpp opportunities on my site and I cannot update them as long as I have this problem. My site looks awful. Thank you so much in advance for any help I can get.

Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

I have not used FTP Commander before, but most all FTP software programs work the same in principle... you establish a FTP connection between a local directory (your computer) and a remote directory (your domain).

My first thought is to verify your FTP connection to ensure that you are actually making a connection to your domain. If you are on iPower and you were recently moved over to the new vDeck/platform, then it is possible that your FTP login information has changed as well.

If you are trying to transfer a file and it is not working, you either are not properly logged into the remote file system or you are in a directory that does not have permission to copy files into.

Can you transfer files from the remote directory to your computer?

Tom

[tjmarshall]

Tom,

I am not sure what you mean by that. I am savvy in some areas and still clueless in others. Please be more specific for an unlearned one. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Tammy M.

[troyzone]

Hi Tammy,

The term "remote directory" that Tom mentioned refers to a directory or folder on your web hosting account. A local directory would be a directory or folder on your own computer, whereas a remote directory would be one that is located on another computer elsewhere.

You had mentioned that you were not able to transfer files from your computer to your web hosting account successfully...Tom was just asking whether you were able to transfer files in the other direction, from your web hosting account to your own computer.

My guess is that you were not using the proper login information for your new vDeck 3 hosting platform's account (which is basically what Tom suggested) and/or there was another configuration problem in your FTP client program.

Troy

[tjmarshall]

Tom and Troy,

Again, thank you for your help.

Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Tammy,

Troy is right on with his further explanation.

The reason why I asked if you could transfer files from the remote directory (your web host) to your computer is to test whether or not you are really logged into your domain.

If you could transfer files from your domain to your computer, then your login is correct and there should be no reason why you would not be able to do the reverse (transfer files from your computer to your domain).

If you cannot transfer files from your domain to your computer, then chances are you are not properly logged in.

This is kind of puzzling me because any worthy FTP sofware should give you diagnostic messages on every activity you perform. Does FTP Commander do this?

If you transfer a file from your computer to your domain, you should see some sort of a success message. If you are getting this, and the file is still not changing, then that FTP software is a piece of crap!

If you are trying to transfer a file and it is not taking, you should clearly see an error message reported by the FTP software. If you are not seeing an appropriate error message, then once again... that FTP software is a piece of crap!

I would highly recommend that you download and give SmartFTP a try. It has a 30 day free trial and if you continue to use it after that for commercial purposes, they suggest that you purchase a license, which is very reasonable for the quality of that software.

I have not tried FTP Commander, but I have tested about a dozen other FTP programs, and SmartFTP is the one I use everyday and is my number 1 recommendation.

If you do not want to purchase a FTP program for some reason, then my recommendation for a completely free FTP program is FileZilla. That was my everyday workhorse until I discovered SmartFTP.

I also give WS_FTP Pro high recommendations, but it is more expensive than SmartFTP and seems to use more memory and resources while doing heavy operations.

Tom

[tjmarshall]

Tom,

Thank you so much for all of your help. I am going to try FileZilla and if I am not happy with that than I will purchase SmartFTP. I am on a limited budget right now so hopefully FileZilla will work for me. Thanks again everyone.

Tammy M.

[tjmarshall]

Hi Tom or Anyone Else That Knows About SmartFTP.

I downloaded it yesterday and got it set up and now I cannot bring up my website?!! I know I did some kind of error for this to happen. Can anyone tell me how to fix it? I thank you very much in advance.

Tammy M.

[cindi]

I am not a techie so I can't answer your question, but I have to say that I use FTP Commander and I have never had a problem. I transfered everything from my laptop to my dinosaur computer including full programs using FTP Commander. I also transfer files between my host to my computer for editing and it has always worked.

I hope you get it working soon.

Cindi

[tjmarshall]

Hey Cindi,

Since you use FTPCommander, would you please read my inquiry at the top of this page. Maybe you can answer my question. I was using it and now I have a problem. Thank you.

Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Tammy,

Your page not displaying has nothing to do with what FTP software you are using.

I am getting a 404 error, Page not found, when I try to load your site. This implies that your site's index file may not be present in your public_html directory, or for some reason your web host is not serving up the page.

Verify that you have an index file (index.htm, index.html, index.php, index.shtml, etc) in your web root directory (public_html). If you don't, upload it again. If you do, then the issue is most likely with iPower (possibly a path or directory setting error of some sort).

Tom

[cindi]

Tammy,

Could this be an iPower issue? I don't use iPower, but I remember they added security stuff for you to answer. The host I use doesn't have that.

Tom is correct. I get a 404 error also. Why don't you try using the manual method to upload your index (through iPower's upload link) and see if that helps. If not, you need to follow Tom's advice.

Cindi

[tjmarshall]

Tom,

I contacted I-Power and they are telling me that the problem is on my end. Would you please tell me how to go about getting a refund with I-Power or is that possible? I am ready to quit Tops because I-Power has been nothing but a pain for me. This is about the 6th time I have inquired their help with no success. Look at my website now and see how they fixed it. I could really use some help here. I am not a computer whiz but I am not stupid either. I really don't know what to do now Tom. You have tried to help me but I don't savvy some of this stuff. I asked the I-Power chat person to take me through one step and show me how to publish my site through them and he gave me a url to read. Then he disconnected our session. Do you have any suggestions? When I had the old I-Power everything worked great and I thought I was on my way to building a great business. This has been an ongoing issue for about 4 months now. Thank you.

Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Tammy,

I just sent you a PM. I will be happy to help in any way I can. You can get back to me at [e-mail].

It looks like your domain is missing the index file based on the error message it is now displaying.

Regards,
Tom

[cindi]

Tammy,

Don't quit TOPS because of this . Let Tom get you through it!

Cindi

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Tammy,

Your site is back online and ready to go!

The problem was a configuration error and I was able to get it straightened out.

Why iPower support couldn't have fixed it for you is beyond me... your public_html directory was completely empty and your site was moved off into a directory the public does not have access to. All I did was move the files back to where they were supposed to be.

Let me know if you have any further issues.

Tom

[mcomo]

cloudhand said:

Tammy,

Your site is back online and ready to go!

The problem was a configuration error and I was able to get it straightened out.

Why iPower support couldn't have fixed it for you is beyond me... your public_html directory was completely empty and your site was moved off into a directory the public does not have access to. All I did was move the files back to where they were supposed to be.

Let me know if you have any further issues.

Tom

Well your certainly not going to get better support than that.
Wow!
Mike C

[cindi]

Tom,

You always go that extra mile for us. Thanks for helping Tammy ;D

Cindi

[tjmarshall]

To All of You,

You cannot possibly know how thankful I am for Tom's help. He truly is a very great person. As Cindi knows, I was ready to quit but not only do I have hope now, but my site is back up, YEA!! and I believe I can tackle my updates now with some well learned knowledge. No, you cannot get any better help than someone who really wants to help. Thanks again to Tom. See you all down the success line!

Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Hi Tammy,

You are welcome! I'm just glad I was able to help get your site back in order and you are still hanging in there. We are all here to help out in one way or another when someone gets stuck.

Regards,

Tom

[tjmarshall]

UhOh,

Not a big deal, but I do not know what line to highlight on which side first in SmartFTP in order to update my webpage. I have done some updates in NVU and then I went into Smart FTP and I tried several options to no avail. I am afraid of messing it up again, as Tom found out, so could someone please give me some baby step directions. Thank you so much.

Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Hi Tammy,

There are 2 panes in SmartFTP, and these can be set up in any configuration you like.

I have mine set up in a side by side configuration where the local directories (your computer) are on the left pane and the remote directories (your web pages) are on the right pane.

If I remember correctly, by default SmartFTP is set up in a top and bottom configuration, but I don't remember which one is the local and which one is the remote. It should be obvious by observing which files and directories are being displayed in the panes.

Go to "Window / Auto Layout" to change the layout of the panes.

Tom

[tjmarshall]

Tom,

I set my page up in SmartFTP like yours and I think I might have messed up my site again! I apologize. I don't know which item to highlight on the left side in my local directory and I don't know which item to highlight on the right side in the ftp directory. HELP please. Thank you and once I know which ones to use to publish my site, I will be set! I have done some new updates in NVU so if you can help me out here, you might see them. Thanks again and sorry for being such a pain!

Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Hi Tammy,

Assuming you have SmartFTP set up with the left pane as your local files and the right pane as your remote files, follow these directions.

When you want to transfer a file from your computer to your domain, click on that file on the left pane and then click on the arrow to transfer the file. The file will be sent to whatever directory is loaded into the right pane.

So to upload your new site, click on the index.html file on the left pane and then click on the arrow. Just make sure that you have the public_html directory loaded into the right pane.

If you want to transfer a file from your domain to your computer, just reverse this process.

Tom

[tjmarshall]

Tom,

Okay, I can do that, thank you. I have to be totally up front with you. Before I wrote to you the last time, I tried to figure it out myself because I did not want to bother you anymore. Not a sob story, just the truth. So, I have messed up my index file AGAIN. Would you please fix it one more time and then by God's grace, I will be out of your hair! Thank you again.

Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Hi Tammy,

Once again, it's no bother and I'm glad to help.

It looks like you are on the right track... I see where you uploaded a new file on 3/11, but it looks like the one from today, 3/14, was uploaded to your account root instead of into your public_html directory.

When you first connect with SmartFTP, you must change directories from your account root to your public_html directory. To do this, just click on the public_html directory.

The great thing about SmartFTP is that where ever you are when you close it, it saves your place and when you open it back up, it will automatically connect to your domain and change to the directory you was in before closing it.

You can also open up multiple remote and local connections, so you can have one tab for your public_html directory, another one for your public_html/images directory, etc. Since I manage many domains and websites, I use it to open up a separate tab for each web site I am working on... both on the local directory and remote directory side.

Anyway, I moved your 3/14 index.html file from your account root to your public_html directory... so you should be good to go. It looks like you have a few missing images, so you should investigate that and FTP the missing ones into your public_html/images directory.

Tom

[tjmarshall]

Hey Tom,

Apparently you are looking at a different index file than me. I went into NVU and resaved my file as index1.html and uploaded that to public_html in SmartFTP and it did not update anything. It is like something is missing somewhere. If I am not specific enough please let me know so we can get this worked out. Thank you very much.

Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Hi Tammy,

By default only the index file will be displayed when you enter in just your domain name, www.nowlivelife.com. In this case, the file name does not need to be entered into the address bar for the page to display. Thus www.nowlivelife.com will display the same page as www.nowlivelife.com/index.html.

The index file can typically be in the form of index.htm, index.html, index.shtml, or index.php. You should have only one of these in your directory, because if you have more than one, for example index.htm and index.html, then only index.htm will be displayed.

In order for an alternative page to be displayed, you must enter the file name into the address... so to display your index1.html file, you must enter www.nowlivelife.com/index1.html.

This is a good way to develop and make changes to your site. Make changes to index1.html until you are happy with it, then rename your current index.html file to an alternate name, for example 20080314.index.html, and then rename your index1.html file to index.html.

You will see that I have done that and saved your current index1.html file as index.html. At this time these 2 files are the same.

One other suggestion I have so you can keep your public_html directory uncluttered with a bunch of archived files is to create an archive directory and store all of your old files there.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Tom

[tjmarshall]

Tom, Also, when I type my www domain in a new browser, my website does not come up? It used to. I get a variety of unecessary options that will only confuse my customers and when I do bring up the webpage, it is not the updated version. See, I believe there is more going on here than we suspect. Thank you. Tammy M.

[Tom "CloudHand"]

Hi Tammy,

Your site is coming up for me.

If you are uploading a modified file and for some reason it appears to not be transferred, there will be an error message displayed in the status window. The status window is located at the bottom inside the remote pane.

If you do not see an error message there, then check and make sure your scroll is at the bottom because it doesn't take long for the status window to fill up with a lot of messages. To see the latest message, scroll to the bottom or just rignt click on the scroll bar and select "bottom"... this will hold the scroll at the bottom so you will always see the latest messages as they are generated.

You will either see a success message or an error message when you transfer your file. If you see a success message, then it will have been successfully transferred, otherwise, you will see an error message that indicates the reason the transfer failed.

Tom