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#15368 What does 'write to disk' mean in .htaccess maker? There appears to be no new file.

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Admin Tools version
n/a

Latest post by jennymac on Monday, 11 March 2013 07:18 CDT

Sunday, 10 March 2013 21:52 CDT

jennymac

Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (.htaccess maker; troubleshooting guide; custon /htaccess maker)? Yes
Have I searched the tickets before posting? Yes
Have I read the documentation before posting (All pages, the .htaccess maker)? Yes
Joomla! version: (2.5.9)
PHP version: (5.3.20)
MySQL version: (5.5.30-log)
Host: (JustHost)
Admin Tools version: (2.5.2)

Description of my issue:

I set all options to no to commence the process of making a wonderful .htaccess file. I turned on the first (disable directlory listings) and got my first Internal Server Error 500 error page! :( after I clicked 'save & create .htaccess. I turned it back to no and tried the next one - success - 'saved to disk' message received. I then went to my CPanel to look at the new .htaccess file and it has not changed, nor is there a 'new' .htaccess.admintools file. The date stamp on the existing .htaccess files is still 16/02/2013 instead of 11/03/2013. So, what exactly does 'write to disk mean? Has it saved somewhere on my PC and I have to find it and upload it?

Many thanks

Jenny

Monday, 11 March 2013 02:21 CDT

nicholas

"Saved to disk" technically means that JFile::write() returned true. In layman's terms, it means that Admin Tools asked Joomla! to write the .htaccess file and J replied that it was able to do so successfully. AT sees that and gives you the info message about successfully saving the file to disk. Disk = the disk of the server which hosts your site. It would actually be extremely difficult having a web application save something on your PC's hard drive – this is prohibited by web browsers due to security concerns (if it was allowed, you'd get infected with a dozen new malware every time you surfed the web).

Now, about the date stamps. Most operating systems keep three date stamps: created date, access date and modified date. Usually the modified date is shown as this is what humans would call the "date of the file". There's a tiny chance that you see the created date. There's also a chance that you just need to wait for cPanel to refresh the infomration it shows.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Monday, 11 March 2013 05:14 CDT

jennymac

Thanks for that Nicholas.

It is about 10 hours later and the file has not been updated. Also, the beginning text of the file reads:

##
# @package		Joomla
# @copyright	Copyright (C) 2005 - 2013 Open Source Matters. All rights reserved.
# @license		GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt

This doesn't look like the preview that I saw before I hit save. 
Any idea on how long it might take? I guess that is the old 'how long is a piece of string' question. Sorry :(

Jenny

Monday, 11 March 2013 05:40 CDT

nicholas

This means that your .htaccess file is unwriteable. Try giving it 0777 permissions, then go back to .htaccess Maker and click on Save and Create .htaccess.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Monday, 11 March 2013 06:51 CDT

jennymac

I gave the file a 777 permission.
I tried to create the .htaccess file and got an error message again.

The message was that the file had been created and written to the disc but no change. :(

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

What next?

Blessigns

Jenny

Monday, 11 March 2013 06:57 CDT

nicholas

Hello Jenny,

This time the file has been written to disk. As noted in https://www.akeebabackup.com/documentation/troubleshooter/athtaccess500.html:

Do note that different servers support different features of our .htaccess Maker. There is no way to know beforehand. Making the perfect .htaccess for your site is a trial-and-error process.

How to do this trial and error? Well, read the big red warning box in our documentation (https://www.akeebabackup.com/documentation/admin-tools/htaccess-maker.html):

We strongly suggest that you begin by setting all options to No and then enable them one by one, creating a new .htaccess file after you have enabled each one of them. If you bump into a blank or error page you will know that the last option you tried is incompatible with your host. In that case, remove the .htaccess file, set the option to No and continue with the next one. Unfortunately, there is no other way than trial and error to deduce which options may be incompatible with your server.

That's exactly how yours truly sets up .htaccess Maker on server environments we have not tested it on before.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Monday, 11 March 2013 07:18 CDT

jennymac

Thank you very much. I shall progress from here.

Blessings

Jenny

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