Hi, I asked this question a few weeks ago and none of the replies have allowed me to get over the error message “file name too long or illegal characters”. I had to reset my PC today and reinstalled Sailwave and created a new file for this weekends race results BUT still got the same error message when trying to Publish to my club web folder. Had a suggestion that a virus checker could be a problem, but I am reluctant to disable this. Any ideas or any others with same problem? Currently saving as a pdf via Word for a manual upload to the club web folder.
Thanks for any ideas or help, Steve Corbet
Steve,
As I recall there were a number of suggestions. Did you understand them?
If so then you need to report back on EXACTLY what you did and what the
results were. Troubleshooting is a multi-step process where you try the
most likely fixes first and if those don’t work then you move on to more
and more obscure possible solutions. With no detailed report back we
have no feedback as to what happened when you tried the suggestions that
were made. That helps us understand what is going on. Plus, without
feedback no one will be able to use the advice provided if they have a
similar problem in the future - which is kind of the purpose of this
community.
If you didn’t understand the suggestions then I think you need to find
someone at your club with some moderate experience with computer
operating systems and ask for their help. The problem is most likely
unrelated to Sailwave. It is possible there is some setting in Win 11
that is messing things up for you but that is very difficult to diagnose
when no one can reproduce the problem you are having ASSUMING you
understood and followed the suggestions made.
You might try publishing an HTML file to your hard drive (like you did
with a PDF) and then uploading that HTML file instead of the PDF. In
other words, do a 2-step publishing process instead of publishing
directly to your website. I should think you won’t be able to save to
your hard drive with illegal characters and that might “clean” them out
of the name of your HTML file.
I assume when you say “re-installed” that you completely uninstalled the
prior installation (wiping the computer hard drive and doing a “full
reset to factory conditions” should be sufficient but then you’d have to
reinstall ALL your software) and then installed Sailwave from scratch.
And, I assume that when you say “created a new file” you meant that you
clicked on “Create new series” in Sailwave and did NOT open a previously
saved BLW file. We identified your problem as illegal characters in the
HTML filename; the issue is how and why are the illegal characters being
generated. It should be fairly simple for someone with moderate computer
experience (not with Sailwave but with computer operating systems in
general) to fix the filename problem so at this point it is pretty much
a mystery as to what you did and why it didn’t work.
Good sailing,
Art
PS - Don’t get discouraged. Just go at the problem slowly step by step
and you WILL get a solution. But, we need to know what each step is and
what the outcome of each step is to be able to give meaningful
additional advice.
PPS - The illegal filename is inside the BLW file. I should think there
is an almost 0% chance that a virus checker could change the HTML
filename INSIDE the BLW file although it could conceivably change the
name of the BLW file itself (but that isn’t your problem). Still, it
wouldn’t hurt to turn off your anti-virus software briefly to try an
upload in Sailwave via FTP.
I guess this isn’t something silly like exceeding the maximum path length in Windows is it? This could happen if you trying to place the file in folders within folders within folders (etc). I believe the maximum default path length in Windows is 255.
Art
Thanks for your reply, yes I did understand the replies to my first question. I followed the suggestions for looking for additional hidden characters but was unable to get away from the error message. The only suggestion I could not follow through was to edit the file and to change the file type suffix as I could not find anyway to change the file type, I did ask how this could be done but had no reply.
As for getting help from an IT savvy member, the club web master has been away cruising all summer with little or no access to internet.
I want to get away from a two step process for loading results as a pdf, some members have complained that reading the pdfs requires them to down load the pdf files rather than reading the htm files on line.
The file name error comes up on both my Notebook Windows 11 and my desktop running Windows 10 both when trying to upload old files which had previously loaded successfully and also with new series result files.
Still looking for a solution
Thanks Steve Corbet
John
Thanks for the comment, I will need our web expert to look to see if this could be the reason, as I don’t have access to the web folders.
Thanks Steve
Hi Steve
If you contact me through the chat on the Sailwave.com website I’ll give you a call and we can work through the problem and hopefully solve it. I’m about most of today Tuesday but not much tomorrow Wednesday
Jon
Hi Steve,
I’ve created an account on my FTP server for you to test. At least this will give you an indication where the issue is.
Here are the Sailwave FTP parameters:
Server: jpvm.org
Base URL:
User: steve_corbet@jpvm.org
Password: 7@8O^{s^8&Lp
Port: 21
Use passive transfers: checked
A file published as Filename: test.htm can be accessed as https://jpvm.org/results/2022/steve_corbet/test.htm
Please be aware that I’ve just allowed 1MB of space which should be plenty for testing.
Peter
HI Steve,
Do you get same error if you upload to Sailwave instead of your own club website?
Please can you share the Sailwave file that you are using and having the problem with? It can then be checked again for hidden characters in the file name.
Kind regards,
Huw
Huw
The file loads successfully to the Sailwave results folder, but still not to the club web results folder.
File is attached
Thanks Steve
Aug BHol 2022.blw (49.9 KB)
Peter
Loading the file to your FTP server was successful, as was loading it to the Sailwave results folder. I was able to read the uploaded files on both sites.
I am leaning towards there being a problem with the club web and the folder structure!! But until John Charles is home from his summer cruise I may not be able to get this resolved.
Any further comments welcomed
Thanks Steve
Jon
I was not able to contact you today and will be out at meetings all day Wednesday – only just managed to try some of the ideas suggested by others – see emails attached. The results I have had suggest to me that there is a problem with accessing the club web and the associated folders – which will need our club web master to look at when he is home from his summer cruise.
Any other comments welcomed
Thanks Steve
Aug BHol 2022.blw (49.9 KB)
Agreed.
The file encoding is UTF-8, which I believe is what it should be (the
prior file was ANSI and illegal characters might not be visible with
that encoding).
The upload file name is “AugBH22.htm”, which contains no illegal
characters and certainly does not appear to be overlong (if your
webserver is Windows that could be a problem but I’d guess only if the
server software is really old and out of date; so, that seems very
unlikely). Most serious webservers run Linux or something similar and
there are no file length limitations.
That leaves some setting on the webserver as it interacts with Sailwave
as the only possibility.
I should think you will have a good possibility of getting around this
limitation if you “publish” the HTML file to your hard drive and then
use an FTP program like Filezilla to upload. Uploading to another
webserver through Sailwave pretty much proves the file and filename
aren’t the problems - just the process of uploading to your particular
webserver through Sailwave. By publishing to your hard drive and then
uploading that file with Filezilla or something similar that would
demonstrate that the problem is the Sailwave FTP upload process and not
some setting on your webserver. Of course, if it that fails then that
would tend to indicate a setting on your webserver and not something
within Sailwave.
I agree with the comments you have received regarding posting results
online as PDF files. Personally, I think that is awful. With a PDF,
viewing is more difficult plus it is almost impossible to easily cut and
paste from a PDF. For my club I wrote macros in Excel so the user would
select a Sailwave HTML file and the macros would then do some processing
of the HTML code to make it look pretty and then upload via FTP (which I
was able to automate in Excel). The FTP username and password were all
encrypted in Excel for security plus almost anyone could figure out how
to do it, no matter the level of expertise or experience using Excel.
I’m not sure it is clear where the error is coming from. In the future,
I’d take a screenshot of the error message (Google how to take a
screenshot in Win 11; in Win 7 I use Alt+PrintScreen to copy the active
window to the clipboard and then Ctl+V to paste into a new Paint
document but I think this kind of stuff is more automated in Win 10/11).
That might help in tracking down the source of the error and how to
eliminate it.
Good sailing,
Art
Art
I saved the results as an html file and was able to upload the file to the club results folder using Firezilla – so as you say below it now points to a problem with the Sailwave ftp upload process. How do we get that sorted? Will it get picked up from the user group? Or do I need to contact the source team?
Thanks for all the help it has been a complex process to identify the problem.
Steve Corbet
Steve,
Check out this thread, which reports the same error and a solution:
Your problem might be different but it is worth trying. Eventually Jon
will take a look at your problem.
Good sailing,
Art
Hi Steve,
Some screen grabs of the FTP tab in global options and the second window of the publishing process would possibly be helpful. For security remove the user name and password in the Global options FTP tab. Also screen grab of the error window that appears when you’re FTP upload to club server would also be helpful.
I saved the results as an html file and was able to upload the file to the club results folder using Firezilla – so as you say below it now points to a problem with the Sailwave ftp upload process. How do we get that sorted? Will it get picked up from the user group? Or do I need to contact the source team?
The fact you have successfully uploaded to Sailwave, successfully upload to Peter VM server and successfully uploaded to your club site using Filezilla eliminates any issue with file name.
How are you are locating the folder to upload to when using Filezilla? Or do you go to the correct folder automatically?
My thought is that there is an issue between the the ‘Base URL’ entered on the FTP tab of Global options and the information entered in the ‘Filename’ box when the publishing destination option ‘A website using FTP/SFTP/SSH/FTPS’ is selected’. The following is from the the Sailwave website - Upload of published results FTP SFTP SSH FTPS | Sailwave - written by Jon when he enhanced the FTP functionality to extend uploading using SFTP/SSH/FTPS
Base URL
Here you can enter the path to the directory that your results will be stored in e.g.
media/results/2021
Note – directories(Folders) must exist when writing files to them otherwise it will return an error that it is not found
If you wish to write directly to the home folder put ./ in the base urlFolders can also be included as a prefix to the filename when publishing. So if your base URL was media/results you could prefix the filename with a folder e.g. 2021/myresults.htm
If you leave the base URL empty then the directory is the root directory and you would have to supply a full path in front of the filename when publishing
Note that the Base URL was not fully implemented in pre 2.29.0 versions of Sailwave so if you have been using the FTP upload previously you will probably need to add ./ here or modify the prefix in front of the filename. But with 2.29.0 onwards you can specify a prefix and don’t need to specify it with the filename.
Directories/Folders must exist and you must have permissions to write to them otherwise it reports an error.
I am sure Jon will be able to help you solve the issue when he and you ‘talk’. Probably, be helpful to Jon if you will be able to share your screen via something like TeamViewer. I now Jon solved an unusual FTP connectivity issue several years ago.
This will be sorted even though it is currently frustrating.
Kind regards,
Huw
Art
I can see a description of a problem but no solution? My problem occurs on both my Notebook (Win 11) and my desktop (Win 10) only common feature is both running same version of Sailwave (Ver 2.29.0).
Thanks Steve
Huw
I can only send you one screen shot at a time – user group rules!!
To upload using Firezilla I used the instructions I was given below, with anew password which I have not included here, this allowed me to go straight to the club result folder on the club web site.
Any ideas to restore the normal service of uploading the html file direct from Sailwave would be welcome – having to double handle the results is tedious.
Thanks Steve
Steve, I had an odd FTP issue last year with a event server and Jon was able to solve it after I gave him the ftp password information.
Your base URL looks different to me. Can you list the folder besides “Remote site:” When you log in using Filezilla
Peter