Problems with .master and Frontpage

[jeuteneier]

I have the Commercial version of Webinator 2.5 on AIX 4.3.3 and use Microsoft Frontpage 2000 to publish my webs.

When I try to publish from my staging server to my production server I get this error:
"Server error: 'webinator/.master' does not refer to a page or folder in this web. It may be a page or folder in a subweb, or it could be a badly formed URL."

Has anyone had this problem? How did you fix it?

I assume that the period in front of master makes it a hidden folder. Is it necessary to hide this folder? Can we change the name to be without the period?

Another possible solution is to make the webinator folder a frontpage web. This will add frontpage extensions. Will this interfere with the function of webinator in any way?

Thanx,
Justin Euteneier

[mark]

Don't know about front page. Maybe it wants the directory to exist before you create it?

The .master directory is required and may not be renamed. It is consulted every time you create a new database with gw. It doesn't change though. Copy the directory and it's contents over by hand once then don't try to do it with frontpage.

Adding random content to the webinator scripts or programs or databases stored under the webinator directory will break them.

[jeuteneier]

By making it a web, Frontpage will simply add folders called _vti_cnf, _vti_pvt, and _private which contain frontpage specific data. Whatever it adds, it does not alter any existing files or folders.

Also, this is sort of a last resort, but couldn't we change the name of the .master to master and then change all the references to the same? Please excuse if that is a really ignorant question.

Thanx,
Justin

[mark]

Adding extra folders won't hurt.

You can't rename .master. gw has it's name hard coded and can not be changed.

The proper thing to do is to install webinator on each system. Then only push around what changes. But make sure you DON'T copy the file "SYSLOCKS" from the database directory.