Form Issue with FP 2002 1

[QMom]

I set up an order form on my site with drop-down fields, text fields, etc. When the user clicks Submit, I want it to send an email to me with their form entries and direct the user to a Confirmation Page. My problem is that I get the email with the information I need, but the form does not hyperlink to the Confirmation Page I want it to. I only get the default confirmation page listing their choices. Sometimes, like just now when I tested it, I get the Front Page Error contact the webmaster page. There are no errors in the error log for all my tests today.

Everything worked fine when I put the page on the web some time last year. Admittedly I didn't check the site or my hosting company's page in months, and when I recently made some changes to the website, I noticed they made some improvements to their control panel, and I wonder if they did something to the extensions at the same time.

The confirmation page is stored with the rest of the site's files; the host company is using FPSE, although they have not confirmed to me yet which version they're using; following an instruction from another post here I changed the space in the file name to an underscore; I've checked, double-checked and rechecked the page and form properties. I'm stumped.

Anyone have an idea of what I should be looking for in the HTML code? I'd really like the page to send me an email (which it does) and hyperlink to PayPal, then back to my Confirmation Page.

Thanks very much in advance...

Myra

 

[DelphiAaron]

if your isp have upgraded thier server then your paths or file permissions may have changed.

Aaron Taylor
John Mutch Electronics

http://www.jme.com.au

 

[QMom]

I have spent all this time fighting with my web host about this problem, which got worse to the point that the page was rendered useless. Finally, after recreating the web page, I got it to send me an email (which had stopped working) and three reinstalls of FPSE. NOW, somewhere in the code the form results insist on going to "_vti_bin/shtml.exe/[form name]", and the user gets the "Front Page Error, contact the webmaster" error page. The code is correct in Front Page, why (and where) does it change once it's published to the host server??

Here is a copy of the code from the server:

//--></script><!--webbot BOT="GeneratedScript" endspan --><form method="POST" name="FrontPage_Form1" action="_vti_bin/shtml.exe/OrderForm.htm" onsubmit="return FrontPage_Form1_Validator(this)" language="JavaScript" webbot-action="--WEBBOT-SELF--">
<!--webbot bot="SaveResults" U-File="_private/form_results.txt" S-Format="TEXT/PRE" S-Label-Fields="TRUE" B-Reverse-Chronology="FALSE" S-Email-Format="TEXT/PRE" S-Email-Address=...

Where can I set or change this in FrontPage?

 

[AMysticWeb]

Aaron has a good point about the server change.

Generally speaking it is best to provide a URL for the problem page. If it is on an Intranet, then the full form HTML from beginning to ending <form> tags is best.

The little bit of code you have here doesn't even indicate your confirmation page path.

Honestly, a simple backslash instead of a forward slash could cause this message and possibly interrupt the extensions.

As to setting the confirmation, this is done in Form properties ...

http://frontpageforms.com/form_properties.htm

Hope I have been of some help,
Micheal

FrontPage Form Tutorials & Form ScriptExamples

http://FrontPageForms.com

 

[QMom]

Thanks AMysticWeb. I've checked the form properties more times than I can remember. I know there's something somewhere I'm overlooking. The page is at

http://www.Stuf-Itz.com\OrderForm.htm.

The confirmation page is (supposed to be)

http://www.Stuf-Itz.com\Confirmation_Page.htm.

 

[AMysticWeb]

Hi QMom,

I honestly don't see anything wrong with Form properties.

I am wondering if you eliminate the confirmation page from properties, if it will show the default confirmation page.

Either way, I would reset or reinstall the extensions. You may have an option for this in your site control panel. If not ask your host to do this for you.

Republish and see if this makes a difference.

Hope I have been of some help,
Micheal Smith

FrontPage Form Tutorials & Form Script Examples

http://FrontPageForms.com

 

[WebSong]

Hi QMOM,
I think you may have overthought the problem. In FrontPage, the default mode for email forms is to use the "default confirmation page" which is generated in FP's background codes.

If you don't like the generic confirmation page ( it is ugly ) simply create a "new page" and select the "custom confirmation page" template from your FrontPage template options.

Then go to the input form itself (in the page view) and right click on the form to bring up the "form properties" dialog box (pop up wizard) and tab through the to where it asks you which confirmation page youd like to use. Click the "browse" button and browse to the page you just made, and select it. You have now linked the form to your new confirmation page.

Design the Custom Confirmation to your needs. You're done with the process.

TIPS:
1.) Some FP users can be a little intimidated by the custom confirmation page. Here's a short-cut. On the custom confirmation page template you'll see a sentence that says "thank you... [UserName]...". The code behind the[UserName] is the FP form field parser. Copy the [UserName] block to where ever you need the data from your form to display. Right click on the [UserName]to bring up the properties and change the propery it to whichever field name you want to display from your input form.

2.) The field names you assign on the form that is to the confirmation must be one word. For example "USERNAME" or "USER_NAME" are ok to use, but "User Name" will not work as it violates query rules.

3.) A nice thing about the custom confirmation page is that not only do you have infinite control over the form results design layout, but you can also display the form results multiple times. For example. "Thank you [user_name] for your order. If there is anthing else we can do for you [user_name], please let us know.

Re: your error message: It sounds like somebody got into the FP background code and blew up the dll component. This is often done by somebody trying to edit the code with notepad or some other editor which lacks the abilty to re-intrgate the script back into FP's managed code structure.

As far as the fix goes a simple reinstalling of FP extensions may not work is the system may understand the unlinkg of the code as "intentional" and leave it it that way. This is a poor explaination, but a better one requires writting a book.

The quick fix may be to create a new site, delete the old one, reset the new one to the same address etc. as the as the old one and then republish to the new site. I suppose that this comes down to a matter of trust. Is the the person that was unskilled enough to break it, skilled enough to fix it? That's your call.

Hope this helps.

 

[QMom]

WebSong, you may be right. I had a feeling I was looking too deeply to fix a surface problem, but I was just lost. I recreated the Order Form page and was able to get it published without the FrontPage Form Component error coming back and emails finally getting delivered (that must have been you testing the form the other night?). I didn't consider (yet) that the problem might have been the Confirmation Page. I'm in the midst of recreating and cleaning up the website anyway, and I'll let you know if a new confirmation page works.

Thank you, thank you all for your time and efforts.

 

[QMom]

That worked! I created a new confirmation page (confirmation.htm) and published it, and now the Submit button goes to the new confirmation page like it should. That was critical because the confirmation page has the PayPal link, so I can get paid for my product. The problem now is that I'm not getting an email with the form information I need. Again. I think I can work around that because PayPal will send me an email letting me know an order has been placed, and then I can go to the feedback.txt file to get the details I need. That's my workaround for now .... anybody know why I'm not getting emails any more? I even added my email address to the submit button properties on the order form. Emails sent from the other links on the site do work.