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Website problems

By Jennifer.Gardner ·
Hi, everyone!

Recently, I've taken over the web editing for my church. I have updated pages here and there, but last night I finally found some time to sit down and really look at it. I don't know the person who had handled this task in the past (it had been neglected for nearly a year), but it was a mess. The directory file structure was a nightmare, and the whole site took over an hour to post.

So... I thought I'd do a good thing a clean things up a bit. Step #1, I deleted all files from the remote server (it obviously hadn't been cleaned up in a loooong time). Then I posted my revised version of the site. The problem is: I'm now getting the 403 Forbidden error.

No problem, I thought, "I'll just repost the backup I made when I first retrieved the files from the server". It didn't work! Even with all of the original files in place, I'm seeing 403 Forbidden.

Before I broke it, when you would browse to www.mychurch.org/, you would be redirected to the default.htm file. I think that's the piece I'm missing - the file that tells the server to redirect. I don't know who handles the webhosting - I've requested this information, but haven't heard back yet. I'm using Dreamweaver MX on my end.

Does anyone know what I can do to correct this mess???

Many thanks!

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by sgt_shultz In reply to Website problems

here is my guess at what is happening...
the 403 forbidden is a cover-all error message from the webserver, with lots of reasons and none told. if you 'lost' the default.htm page, you are probably trying to navigate to your pages with url, not link from home page and webserver is denying that type of access...
the way web browsing works, if you have a page named default.htm in the 'root' or topmost level of your website, that is the page that opens by default when you access the website.
so, you probably have a 'home' page that used to be called default.htm. rename it and you will be all ok i bet
you were on the right track to talk to the web host folks...if you can't get good support from them for this issue, consider changing webhost providers after you find somebody that can help you...

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by sgt_shultz In reply to

ps. look at the login in the ftp setup in dreamweaver (i don't know dreamweaver, again i am guessing it has a built-in ftp client).
the username there is probably an email address, like mychurch@earthlink.net
therein lies a clue about who is your webhost provider...try to figure out how to get to their website and email or call tech support from info provided there...your password may be 'saved' and you will need to find out what it is so start asking around...if you can't find it you can ask webhost provider to reset it...

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by Jennifer.Gardner In reply to

I was able to get ahold of the webhost provider, and it turns out that I was posting to the wrong directory on the server. I was told to post to /home/mychurch, when I should have been posting to /home/mychurch/www. C'est la vie! At least now I know who the webhost provider is. Enjoy the points!

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by dmiles In reply to Website problems

Several scenarios can cause a 403 error response from our webservers. When a 403 response is generated, access to the requested file is not allowed for one or more reasons.

Some potential reasons for this response are:

The CGI script requested does not have executable permissions set. If this is the problem, here's the solution.

A directory index has been requested in a directory for which such requests have been specifically disallowed. If this is the problem, you'll need to change the filename of your home page, change the default home page setting, or undo the disallow setting for directories.

Your hosted website has been disabled for a violation of our terms of service or non-payment.

There are more then just those 2 reasons. They might not have a
default/index page specified, or the server may be looking for
index.html and they have default.html or something similar.

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by Jennifer.Gardner In reply to

I was able to get ahold of the webhost provider, and it turns out that I was posting to the wrong directory on the server. I was told to post to /home/mychurch, when I should have been posting to /home/mychurch/www. C'est la vie! At least now I know who the webhost provider is. Enjoy the points!

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by Jennifer.Gardner In reply to Website problems

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