Error 3 - error 1

[kjbennett]

I am having some trouble with aliases. I have a web project that does fine in Live Preview but when I publish it to the server it generates the
column headings and then
Error 3 - Error 1
where the data should be. I get this seemingly on all files.

My profile has the alias of:
[PathAlias.ADB_Path] = \\Ctiserver-01\a5webroot

The Publish to LAN settings are:
Webroot is \\Ctiserver-01\a5webroot
Target folder is <Default>

The Publish Database Files is:
Yes
Files to publish is a list that I defined
Folder is \\Ctiserver-01\a5webroot

What am I doing wrong with the aliases?

[Steve Wood]

Re: Error 3 - error 1

In my alias for server install, I have the physical drive letter rather than the servername. As in C:\a5webroot. The path here has to be something that the server would understand. Your alias says servername and then it will look for a share name of a5webroot. Maybe that's what you have, but unless you specifically made the A5Webroot folder shared and used a5webroot as the name, its not going to find the folder.

Your entries for Publish to LAN look fine.

Also never publish your data files to the virtual folder (A5Webroot). If you do, someone could get direct access to your data tables like this http://yourdomain.com/your_tablename.dbf, and it would probably just open your table in MS Excel on their side.

[kjbennett]

Re: Error 3 - error 1

Thanks for the input

I tried changing the alias to [PathAlias.ADB_Path] = C:\A5webroot with no luck. Yes the folder is shared as you assumed and the share name is a5webroot. For some reason, the files are not being seen by the server. If I publish the files to the root directory, I get the Error 3 - Error 1 message. If I publish the files to the a subdirectory down from root called data, I get Error 3 - The system cannot find the file specified. \\Ctiserver-01\A5webroot\Customers.Dbf and it is listing the file as not being found in the root directory. It is not attempting to look in the data directory. Where and how do you tell the WAS the location of the data files? FYI: I now have the Profile->Publish Database files->Folder set to \\Ctiserver-01\a5webroot\data

Everything works flawlessly on the development machine.

I think I understand that as you build grid components, you have three choices for data sources. I choose the first, "AlphaFIVE .dbf tables". This I assume is accessing the .dbf files of the open AlphaFIVE database. What if I wanted to access AlphaFIVE tables stored in another directory or on another server (with the same file names)? I assume that is exactly what aliases are all about. I have read the on-line help several times and I must be pretty thick because this seems relatively simple and yet I cannot get past this hurdle.

Thanks for the warning on the location of data files. What is a typical mapping/storage scheme for storing data files on a web application?

[Steve Wood]

Re: Error 3 - error 1

Actually I don't know what the error 1/3 is coming from; you should see something like this at the bottom of your screen, regardless of error:

Alpha Five/7.0 Build/4130-3033 at MYDOMAIN Port 80
I did lead you astray with my suggestion for an alias, I mixed them up. Your alias should point to where the data is. If your Alpha application is ON the server, then you just create an alias as:

[PathAlias.ADB_Path] = =a5.get_path()

In this case you would not publish data files, because they are already present on the serer.

If it is not on the server, or you want to redirect where it looks (e.g.: you are publishing a subset of your data), you put in something like this:

[PathAlias.ADB_Path] = P:\mydata

where P is a share name pointing to this or a different server.

or perhaps

[PathAlias.ADB_Path] = c:\A5\data

if its on the same server at that location.

-----------
Also your server (I mention this because I do not recognize those error message numbers) has to be running a licensed and activated copy of Alpha WAS. Go to the server and right click on the Alpha WAS icon in the system tray. Click Configure Server and check the Sessions tab. You should have a green icon next to either the 30-day trial or your unlimited license. On the General tab, you should have a document root such as c:\a5webroot, if that's where your a5webroot folder is.

Lastly, everywhere in your application where you reference a database table, you have to proceed that with <ADB_Path> as in:

record_add("<ADB_Path>\web_users_logins.dbf", cs, 2)

Note: <ADB_Path> is the same as [PathAlias.ADB_Path]

[kjbennett]

Re: Error 3 - error 1

I did activate the WAS on the server although I did have a green light next to the 30daytrial. I entered the registration code and pressed activate and the green light came on next to the code. Therefore I deleted the 30daytrial.

Still getting the same old messages. With any grid component, I get "Error 3 - Error 1" and no data. Again this works fine on the development machine but not the server.

On the development machine all the data files are in the same directory with the application. The data is not in another directory. When I go to the server I want the .dbf files in another location. I have developed this application choosing the files from the dropdown box in the Grid Builder and I note that it only shows the database files from the active database. If I develop with .a5W pages and grid components with a "customer" file that is on my local machine, and then I want to have the application access DIFFERENT .dbf files with the same name, is that possible? I have developed this relatively small application from a COPY of my live database. Now that is it ready to test I want to plug in the live data in exchange for this set of "dummy" files. Am I rewriting this thing at this point?

[Steve Wood]

Re: Error 3 - error 1

Yes, you can develop with dbf files on your local machine and then reference different tables on a different machine from the server. You can either publish the database files if you want the same data that presently resides on your local computer, or you can just reference dbf files on the other machine assuming they are present and with exactly the same structure.

If you want, go to my website and click the Online Help and id yourself, with your permission I will take a look at your computer and see if I can resolve. I am on pacific coast time.

[kjbennett]

Re: Error 3 - error 1

Your offer to dial in and fix my system is wonderful and I may take you up on it in the future. For today, I have the issue fixed! Slick as a baby's bottom, it is pulling the right data from another server.

I had, unbeknownst to me, an admin issue with the 8080 port that I was trying to access. My IT person fixed that.

In addition I mapped the ADB_Path to "R:\" and this mapped drive is from the server's point of view. When you are standing on the server (don't try that at home), "R:\" is mapped to a Network Place that contains the live data. I really think that is where I got things confused. The alias is from the server's point of view and it is easy to get turned around when you are looking at that server from another computer. Some of your previous comments helped me on that.

Final settings that worked for the server are:
General->Publishing type

Publish to LAN

General->Alias

[PathAlias.ADB_Path] = R:\

Publish to LAN->Webroot

\\Ctiserver-01\A5webroot\

Target folder was set to blank

I did NOT publish the data files.

It is working. Now all I need to do is getting it working faster than it does. Hey Alpha software guys and gals, this WAS is slow!

Thank you so much for your help and attention to the message board. It is very much appreciated!

Kevin