Thread

Hi. I’m brand new to EE and working through the “Ed & Eg” tutorial in “Building Websites with Expression Engine 2” by Leonard Murphy. I’ve run into some strange and non-functional behavior around uploading files (image files specifically) and visibility of files in the File Manager.

First, it seems that I can create a new Upload Destination within EE’s File Manager. However no directory actually gets created, despite getting the green check mark confirmation and seeing the destination listed on the main Upload Preferences page.

If I circumvent EE and create the directory with Fetch and FTP files there, clicking Synchronize back in EE results in consistent information as far as how many files are there, what kind there are, and no error notices.

However, back on the main File Manager page, only some of the files are listed (specifically only six out of 10). My systems administrator has checked the permissions on the Apache server and everything is wide open for read and write.

The other issue relates to being able to upload files from within EE. The Upload File button on the main File Manager page doesn’t seem to work. The screen appears to refresh, but no dialog box appears or message of any kind.

Going through the first steps of the tutorial, I created a Channel Field for inserting images. Again, only six of the 10 files show up in the upload / image selection interface. In addition, if I try to upload a file from my computer, I get a message “The upload destination folder does not appear to be writable.” (prior to my circumventing EE and creating the images folder via FTP client, the message was that the destination did not exist). My systems administrator has checked the permissions on the folder in question and all permissions are wide open.

Running EE 2.2.2.

Thanks.

lesdweb,

Welcome to the Forums and ExpressionEngine!

I’m sorry that you have run into this trouble right out of the gate, but let’s see if we can get this sorted out.

First, EE will not create your folders on the server. Upload destinations simply point to directories that must already exist on the server. The best workflow is to create your directories via FTP, and set the permissions to 777. Then once those are all set, you create the Upload Destinations in EE and reference the directories you created in the path and URL fields for the destination.

As to the second issue you are seeing with the Upload File button in the File Manager, unfortunately that is a known bug, but there is a fix. Have a look at this thread in the bug tracker for the patch.

Cheers,

Thanks Dan. I was able to successfully implement the bug fix for the Upload File button.

Also thanks for clarifying the workflow for folder creation and permissions. The book didn’t make that very clear.

The next issue we’ve encountered is a message about the thumbnail directory not being writable, but that appears to be related to the image resizing protocol setting. My systems administrator is checking on whether GD is installed. I’ll let you know if we encounter any problems getting that piece working.

We got GD installed and things seem to be working as they should. Thanks for the assistance.

Also for others who may experience similar issues, the “_thumbs” folder would also need to be created in advance via FTP client and have its permissions set to 777.

Hi Cameron,

Glad to see you have everything working now.

If anything else crops up then please don’t hesitate to post again as needed.

Thanks,

Mark