Uploading "(null)" - published site problems

kfander · August 15, 2011 6:20 pm

Earlier today, I tried to publish the first site that I have created with Sandvox. The site consists mostly of photo/video albums. I was using one of the standard templates that came with Sandvox and all but the index page were created using the "Photo Album" option.

After uploading the files, rather than telling me that they had been published successfully, the action line was all the way over to the right but the text displayed was: Uploading "(null)".

Thinking that there were perhaps some last files that needed to be uploaded, I gave it more than a half hour after it had reached that point, then clicked to stop it. In the event that some files were missing, I then had it upload changed files only. It did this, and returned an uploading successful message.

However, the site looked much like I were viewing the site in a badly outdated browser, although I am using Mac OS Lion with updated Safari and Firefox browsers. Or, it looked like perhaps it wasn't using the template.

I uploaded the files again, and again it ended with: Uploading "(null)".

As before, I stopped it and uploaded changed files, after which it reported a successful upload. This time, when I tried to view the site, it displayed what appears to be an RSS page, but which included only a few of my pages. In fact, sometimes it redirects to http://feed.petramainewildlife.com/

I don't mind at all if Sandvox creates RSS for me, but not if it's in lieu of an actual site.

This is what the site is supposed to look like, in Sandvox view: http://www.miscellaneousstuff.net/screenshotdesign.png

This is what the site looks like: http://www.miscellaneousstuff.net/screenshotsite.png

Or you can just look at it for yourself at http://www.petramainewildlife.com/

Last edited by kfander (August 15, 2011 6:28 pm)

terrence · August 15, 2011 6:34 pm

Sounds like (obviously) publishing did not complete. The CSS for the site was not uploaded (no styling) and the index was not uploaded (but the .rss was).

I would recommend making sure you're up to date on Sandvox. (The current release version is 2.1.7.) After that, I would quit and relaunch Sandvox. I would go through Setup Host all the way to the end just to make sure that connection information is correct. I would then do a Publish All to make sure that everything is uploaded.

It may be that you don't need all of those steps, but I would do them just to make sure.

kfander · August 15, 2011 7:45 pm

Thank you Terrence, I will do as you say. I am running an updated version of Sandvox, however.

kfander · August 15, 2011 10:14 pm

Okay, I did all of these things, and re-uploaded the files, which takes a long time, given all of the image and video files. Once again, rather than finishing, it stalls on: Uploading "(null)", and the only thing that comes up on my site is an RSS feed, the same one that came up before.

This is where uploading ends: http://www.miscellaneousstuff.net/screenshotnull.png

No matter how long I let it go, it never completes. I really like Sandvox as far as its ease to work with, so I am really hoping that there is going to be some way that I can actually publish a site that works from it.

Last edited by kfander (August 16, 2011 7:37 am)

terrence · August 15, 2011 10:28 pm

Hmm. I'm not sure what's going on. I will open a case (#138830) and ask around.

terrence · August 16, 2011 9:00 am

In thinking about this, (null) must refer to the name of a piece of media that's being uploaded but somehow the proper information about it is being lost. Would you do me this favor? Try to Publish > Export... your site to a folder on your Desktop. Does that complete successfully?

kfander · August 16, 2011 10:48 am

I will do that. Meanwhile, I have noticed that here are a couple of files that were uploaded to my server that show a "temp" designation, which is not something that I would have assigned to any of my pages.

http://www.miscellaneousstuff.net/screenshottemp.png

kfander · August 16, 2011 10:59 am

terrence wrote:

In thinking about this, (null) must refer to the name of a piece of media that's being uploaded but somehow the proper information about it is being lost. Would you do me this favor? Try to Publish > Export... your site to a folder on your Desktop. Does that complete successfully?

Exporting the site to my computer does not return a "(null)"; rather it returns a publishing complete message.

kfander · August 16, 2011 1:24 pm

I tried uploading the files that I had exported to my computer to the server via FTP. Although no problems were indicated in the upload, I still don't have anything other than the same RSS feed that I had with the files uploaded through Sandvox.

terrence · August 16, 2011 2:33 pm

The Temp_ files are what Sandvox uploads during Host Setup as a test to make sure that uploading and then loading of the URL is correct. Sandvox usually cleans those up. They are harmless. You can remove them on your own if you want to.

terrence · August 16, 2011 2:36 pm

kfander: I'd like to get a copy of your console report to see if Sandvox is complaining about anything. Would you contact Karelia Support, reference Case 138830, and ask Heather to send you the console log instructions? That way we have an email link to follow up more easily. Thanks.

kfander · August 16, 2011 2:59 pm

Terrence, I will do that. You should know, perhaps, that Heather has also been in touch with me, although we haven't yet arrived at a resolution to the problem.

terrence · August 16, 2011 3:25 pm

Glad to hear it. I think a console log that's ultimately sent to Mike and myself will be helpful. (I hope! This is obviously not usual Sandvox behavior.)

kfander · August 20, 2011 2:05 pm

I haven't heard from anyone on this for awhile and I think I've managed to send everything that anyone was asking for. Right now, I don't want to spend anymore time creating anything in Sandvox because I don't know if I'll be able to use anything that results from it. My web host tells me that Sandvox is creating an index.html that is actually an XML file and the browser is seeing it as an RSS feed, none of which makes a bit of sense to me, except an RSS feed is all that I have.

terrence · August 20, 2011 5:17 pm

I've sent you three replies through our case tracking system. From the information you supplied there, I think your connection information is probably incorrect and needs to be redone.

kfander · August 21, 2011 3:10 pm

Terrence, using your suggestions, Sandvox created two additional folders on my server but not in the correct locations. In an attempt at determining once and for all whether the problem is in my server setup, my server itself, or in the files created by Sandvox, I have removed the files created by Sandvox and replaced them with a test site created by RapidWeaver, using their photo album as I did the one from Sandvox, and let RapidWeaver upload the files.

RapidWeaver uploaded the files to the same place that Sandvox had originally placed the Sandvox files and, as you can see, they work: http://www.petramainewildlife.com/

As opposed to RapidWeaver, I much prefer Sandvox as a web editor but, of course, that doesn't do me any good if the resulting files will not display in a web browser. Since a site created by RapidWeaver does display though, it seems clear that the problem is in the files created by Sandvox, so I'm hoping that someone here will be able to figure out the problem. I am using one of the standard templates that came with the program.

As convoluted as Dreamhost's file system is, I don't think that's the problem. Sandvox did upload the files, with the setup that I had originally used. I could see that the files were there, where they were supposed to be, by viewing them through FTP, but they didn't work. I don't know if Sandvox is creating an incorrect index.html file, as Dreamost's tech support says, or whether things are being garbled during the upload, but the only thing that I have been able to display through Sandvox is a partial RSS feed, and even that wouldn't work correctly. I tried uploading the files to the same location through FTP as opposed to letting Sandvox upload them (although I truly hope to be able to use Sandvox uploading), but still I got only an RSS feed.

Yet, as you can see, when I upload a similar - although much smaller - site through RapidWeaver, the program places the files in the same subdirectory as Sandvox had (with my original setup), but the ones created by RapidWeaver work.

Last edited by kfander (August 21, 2011 7:14 pm)

terrence · August 21, 2011 9:03 pm

Again, I have followed up privately with you asking for temporary connection information and your document so that I can see exactly what is going on myself.

kfander · August 22, 2011 7:54 pm

Heather, Terrence; thank you both very much. It now publishes beautifully to my server, and it displays in a browser. Thanks for sticking with it to the end.

Last edited by kfander (August 22, 2011 7:55 pm)

terrence · August 22, 2011 9:07 pm

I'm glad it worked out. For anyone following along, I think the connection settings were just slightly off.

kfander · September 8, 2011 3:45 pm

I am going to post this (possibly different) problem here rather than beginning a new thread, because it also began with an Uploading "(null)" prompt, and has to do with a publishing problem.

Terrence and Heather led me by the hand through this before, and told me that the problem was in my publishing configuration. Indeed, it did work and I was able to add to my site several times after that.

However, now I'm having troubles again but they began while my site was still on Dreamhost, and without my having changed anything whatsoever in my publishing configuration. I have since moved to another host, which uses a different configuration than Dreamhost so I don't know what problems my lie there. Anyhow, here it is.

I have put in a trouble report with additional information but since I haven't received a response to that yet, I thought I'd bring it up here in case anyone here has any ideas.

After adding a few photo album pages to my site last night, I published the changed pages to my server. As has happened to me before, for reasons that I still don't entirely understand, after uploading the files (the action line was all of the way over to the right), rather than returning a success message, it seemed to stall at …

Publishing… Uploading "(null)"

See http://www.miscellaneousstuff.net/screenshotnull.png for screen shot.

After giving it a long period of time, and finding that it wasn't ever going to complete the publish, I stopped it and checked my site. I didn't get a screenshot of this, but my site loaded, only all of my pages were jumbled. While it looked okay from the index page, when I clicked into a page, rather than bringing up the page that I had clicked into, it brought up another page.

I had it publish all of my files to my server. Again, it stopped at Publishing… Uploading "(null)". I stopped it, and had it publish changed files. It did upload a few additional files and returned a success message.

But when I tried to go to my site, rather than displaying the site, it displayed a site navigation page that looked like this: http://www.miscellaneousstuff.net/screenshotsafari.png

At that time, I tried accessing it from my iMac as well, and that wasn't working either.

Since the first time I tried to publish a Sandvox site, during the week in which I wasn't sure (still not) whether the problem was in the publish configuration, in the files created by Sandvox, or with Dreamhost, which I was using as a server, I had bought a hosting plan from another host, intending to move my sites over the new host as I updated them through Sandvox.

Once Terrence and Heather were able to get my petramainewildlife.com site to publish correctly on Dreamhost, I put that one on the back burner.

However, since the site wasn't working, this seemed to be a good time to move it, so before putting in a trouble request, I published my site to the new host, after the nameservers did their thing and the DNS propagated.

Again, I couldn't access the site as it is supposed to be through my MacBook; nor can my wife access it through her iMac, both using the same wireless connection. Regardless of browser, the site doesn't display correctly. Yes, I have cleared the cache, the history, and everything else.

However, and this is strange, my iMac, which sits next to my MacBook and uses the same wireless connection, can access the site just fine, in any browser.

Here are screenshots of both my computers trying to access the index page of my site at roughly the same time, both using Firefox:

http://www.miscellaneousstuff.net/scree … acbook.png MacBook
http://www.miscellaneousstuff.net/scree … e-imac.png iMac

Incidentally, this holds true regardless of which browser I use, except that Opera displays a network error prompt on my MacBook rather than the navigation type page that the other browsers display, while my iMac will bring the site up just fine in Opera or any other browser. On my iMac, I can browse through my site and everything seems to be working just fine. My wife can't bring it up on her iMac, using the same wireless connection, so I don't get it.

My site is http://www.petramainewildlife.com/ and I'd be interested in knowing what others are seeing.

Last edited by kfander (September 8, 2011 3:50 pm)

terrence · September 8, 2011 8:26 pm

So it seems like you have two problems here:

1) publishing stalls at "Uploading null"

This is a (fortunately) rare problem that can occur. It should be fix in 2.1.9/2.2. (I see you are using 2.1.8, which is the current Release version.) 2.1.9/2.2 does change the way SFTP publishing works. Most have reported better success with this new code; a few people have not reported success. I would wait for Karelia Support to get back to you to advise you whether to try the latest beta or not. Hopefully, though, this issue will be resolved shortly.

2) One of your computers is not loading the stylesheet for the petramainwildlife.com site and so the site is not displaying correctly. This is a harder issue, but the likely culprit is a cache issue with Firefox. (I note that in your screenshots, it loads in Safari but not Firefox.)

I've tried http://www.petramainewildlife.com/ here in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome, and all three look fine to me. I suspect something needs to be tweaked with your Firefox cache and the page reloaded at your end. Since I cannot reproduce the problem here, I cannot for sure say how to remedy it. It does seem like a caching issue though.

kfander · September 8, 2011 9:20 pm

terrence wrote:

So it seems like you have two problems here:
2) One of your computers is not loading the stylesheet for the petramainwildlife.com site and so the site is not displaying correctly. This is a harder issue, but the likely culprit is a cache issue with Firefox. (I note that in your screenshots, it loads in Safari but not Firefox.)

No, my Macbook won't access the site in any browser, and I've tried ten of them. I have used MainMenu to clear the cache in all of my browsers, as well as the user cache, but it makes no difference. I created the site on my MacBook.

Additionally, my wife is unable to access it from her computer, which is an iMac. However, my iMac will access the site on all of the same ten browsers, although I won't bother doing screenshots of them.

There's no need to look at them all, I suppose, but if you look at any one of them, you'll see that they are trying to open the page entitled, 05/14/11 15:20:08 - which is one of the photo album subpages, the same one with the photo of the bear that shows up on the bottom. It should be reaching the index.html page rather than this internal page. Even when I type in the index.html extension, it instead tries to reach this internal page.

Since only one of the three computers we have here can reach the site correctly, I am concerned about how many other people may not be able to reach the site.

Last edited by kfander (September 8, 2011 9:22 pm)

kfander · September 8, 2011 9:47 pm

Plus, I use my MacBook all the time; a big part of what I do for a living involves reviewing web sites, and I haven't come across a problem accessing or rendering anyone else's site.

I am grasping at straws here, but my wife suggested one possible relationship that might have a bearing, although it doesn't solve the problem. My MacBook and her iMac, which are unable to render the site, were upgraded to Lion, while my iMac, which does render the site, shipped with Lion. Of course, I'd hate to think that anyone who has upgraded to Lion would be unable to access my site. I don't have a PC here, so I don't know how - or if - it will display on a PC.

Last edited by kfander (September 8, 2011 9:50 pm)

Michelle · September 8, 2011 10:21 pm

But your wife has a PC.

Michelle · September 8, 2011 10:34 pm

On my Gateway, it looks fine in Firefox. And in Internet Explorer. And in Chrome for PC.

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#1 August 15, 2011 6:20 pm

Uploading "(null)" - published site problems

#2 August 15, 2011 6:34 pm

Re: Uploading "(null)" - published site problems

#3 August 15, 2011 7:45 pm

Re: Uploading "(null)" - published site problems

#4 August 15, 2011 10:14 pm

Re: Uploading "(null)" - published site problems

#5 August 15, 2011 10:28 pm

Re: Uploading "(null)" - published site problems

#6 August 16, 2011 9:00 am

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#7 August 16, 2011 10:48 am

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#8 August 16, 2011 10:59 am

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#9 August 16, 2011 1:24 pm

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#10 August 16, 2011 2:33 pm

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#20 September 8, 2011 3:45 pm

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#21 September 8, 2011 8:26 pm

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