Front Page form question – problem with results (Front Page 2003)

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I have a form that I created in Front Page. I set up the Form Properties so that upon Submit, the form results would be dumped into a database that I had Front Page create for me (and it stuck it in a subfolder called FPDB). It also suggested that I rename the page with the form to .asp so that the form functioned correctly, and I did that. I have posted the entire web (which consists only of the .asp form page, the FPDB folder with the .mdb file inside of it, and whatever other folders Front Page automatically creates when you create a new web) up to my host web server. I have confirmed that they do have Front Page Server extensions installed on their server. I can open the form page, enter information and hit Submit. When I hit Submit it gives me an automatically generated “results” page showing me what I just submitted, and gives me an option to go back to the form. In other words……EVERYTHING APPEARS TO BE WORKING RIGHT. But (there’s always a “but”, isn’t there?)….when I copy the Access DB back down to my hard drive (which I do by FTPing into the site, Copying the file there and Pasting it locally on my machine) and open it up. There’s nothing there. No records. What am doing wrong? What do I need to check?

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Satiria

We are working in the blind here. Is there any chance you could attach a copy of the asp page for us to look at just to get us started please?

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The actual file is attached (renamed to .txt as it would not let me post .asp files – so just rename back). Here’s the URL of the page on the site: http://www.scctic.com/seminar/registration.asp

Sorry about that. And thanks for taking a look at it. – Sat.

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I registered! Or did I?

Does the timestamp for the MDB file show that it has been updated after making a test registration? (FTP clients often don’t show the hour for your time zone, but the minutes should match closely.)

You might create a second page to dump out the contents of the database (using FP’s database stuff) to see whether anything is found there. If so, that would suggest that FP made a secret copy of the MDB in one of its hidden folder and is updating that one instead.

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The time stamp for the .mdb file that Front Page created for me does not show as updated since the .mdb was created. And I’m fairly sure I’m looking at the correct .mdb since I noted the time when I hit “Create DB” in the Form properties, and it matches up. So something’s just not happening.

I’m not sure how to make a page to display DB results through FP. Can someone enlighten me? Just haven’t ever done that before, though it’s probably not difficult given the nature of FP.

As a test I made a copy of the registration form (http://www.scctic.com/seminar/registration1.asp) and changed the form properties on it so that it would dump to my email address instead. I did not specify a file name when doing that (didn’t think that I had to) – just put in my email addy and in Options, designated a Subject line, and even went so far as to setup a Confirmation Page instead of the generic one. Didn’t have to publish it (as this time I was working in FP directly connected to the web server, which makes me nervous as heck, but figured maybe something was getting lost in the Publish process), went to that link and tested it out, and upon hitting Submit, I do not get a Confirmation Page, I certainly don’t get an email on my end with the results, and basically the IE screen just blips for a second and shows the form again, though the form has been cleared of all data that I entered. At least with the first link that was supposed to be dumping to the DB I got a “confirmation page” that LOOKED like the form did something.

MORE INFO: I am hosting this on a remote web server through Web.com. I’ve inherited this – this is the web hosting service that our company has always used for their website before I recently came on here. On the Admin panel of our site there is an entire section devoted to Front Page Server extensions. Granted, they are 2002 FP Server Extensions, but I was under the impression that even installing those on a web server would give your forms functionality, despite the fact that the pages I’m creating are through FP 2003. When I first posted these few pages up, the Submit button on the FP form would return an error. So I checked the Admin panel of the site and it said FP Server Extensions WERE installed. I reinstalled/fixed anyway, and low and behold my form appears to start working, giving me a confirmation page with form results instead of an error. I really wonder if the problem isn’t on the host server end. Which is why I wanted you guys to look at the original page and see if there appeared to be anything that I was doing wrong.

Thanks again for any input. — Sat.

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Sorry for any confusion, I meant the time stamp of the MDB on the remote server. What FTP program are you using? I’m familar with WiseFTP and SmartFTP. Actually, if you open your web directly in FrontPage you might be able to inspect the properties of the remote MDB file and see whether it has been updated since the time you uploaded it.

To create a page to read the contents of your database, create a new page then use the Database Results wizard to display all contents of the main table in your MDB that contains your data. Don’t worry about pretty formatting, you’re just checking the contents of the database for diagnostic purposes.

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Nope – no confusion on this end (I don’t think). Then again, The Confused always say that.

I was “live” on the remote server files through FP and I had it create the DB for me (again!) in Form Properties. I had done this before locally, but since I thought something might have gotten lost in the FTPing of the site, I decided to open the web page directly through File | Open in FP and typing the URL, then adding server credentials to get in. I opened the .asp page and saw that in Form Properties the “dump to database” option was selected but when I looked at Options there was no database specified, nor could I choose one from the drop down arrow. So I just went with Create DB and it created another database. I immediately checked the folder that it supposedly created the new DB in, looked at the time stamp on the DB (still “live” on the remote server during all this), and it was the correct, current time. I went into IE and tried to enter some dummy data; copied the DB down to local machine again (no records); checked the time stamp on the MDB on the remote server to see if it changed (it has not – still the same as when it was created). So I’m stumped.

I use WS_FTP Pro to FTP the site.

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