pwsWD and filezilla

Lakewood NY Home Weather Station (wf version) is my pwsWD website.

Not sure what happened but I checked settings after Wim posted his end-of-free-support message. I figured I should make sure my version was up to date and not worry about it anymore. So I go into settings and do the check for updates and it shows me a few files need to be updated so I download the zip file. Here’s the list:

So first thing I do is my monthly backup of my home directory. It needed to be done anyways as it was the new month.

I then ftp these files to my server using filezilla to overwrite the old files. All seems ok, but when I go to look at my website all I get is a 500 error. Huh?
(add: by replacing the files one at a time I find that the PWS_settings.php file was causing the 500 error)

So I think I messed something up so I go into my freshly made backup file and grab the files I just replaced and ftp them to my website. Great, my website is back up and running.

Wait a minute, something ain’t right. I notice some of the blocks are not updating. Weird. So I think I should take a look at my settings in pwsWD so I attempt to enter the settings. The page comes up and asks for my password. I type it in and nothing happens. So I type it in again and now I get a message that I must enter a valid password. So I exit out and go back to my website and not it looks like pwsWD lost all settings and is only partially showing me a semi-looking pwsWD page.

I get on filezilla and check my pwsWD directory and find that my settings file that used to be about 5kb in size is now like 150 bytes. Whoa!

I now I am stuck with a website that partially works and I am unable to edit my settings without pwsWD over-writing my settings file.

At first I thought it must be either a virus or similar, or, filezilla is not doing what I think it’s doing.

So, I could try to delete/restore my entire pwsWD directory on the server and see if that fixes it. But I thought before I do that I would tell my story here and see if anybody has had a similar thing happen to them. It’s such a strange thing that I wanted to see if anybody else had a idea of what could be going on. Why would entering the setup page for pwsWD cause it to overwrite the settings file?

As for filezilla, I am having doubts about it as well. It sometimes fails to perform an overwrite of a file. As an example, I download a text file to my local desktop, edit it, then have filezilla ftp the file back to my server. The original file size was 1500 bytes. After I edited the file it’s size is now 1533 bytes. But when filezilla ftp’s the file to the server I notice the filesize is not 1533 or 1500 bytes but some other number and usually smaller. So not sure I trust filezilla 100% anymore.

So, has anyone had anything similar happen to them?

Dan

The FileZilla file size differences might be due to changing end of line characters. Windows tends to use two characters (CR+LF) and Linux just one (\n). I’ve not used FileZilla for quite a few years but I wonder if it knows what O/S is at each end and adjusts the end of lines accordingly?

Maybe Chris, but it’s enough to make me not trust it anymore. File size change is dramatic and I suspect is more than EOL characters. At any rate I performed CPR and replaced the whole pwsWD directory and initial indications are that things are running normal. Still a very strange set of circumstances occured that has me scratching my head about what happened. I was able to login to my settings in pwsWD and do a save so I think everything is working. However, the files that it shows need updating are for now NOT going to be updated. Hopefully nothing will break in pwsWD. I did make a donation to Wim but I have no idea if that entitles me to any future updates or support from him. So I will continue to run pwsWD as I do like the format and if/when it breaks I guess it will end up in the recycle bin.

Hi Dan,
I am away from home until November 12.
Leaving your system as is, is a very good idea as the last updates are not essential.

As said before I will maintain the current release as long as I can.

You already donated so you got a “thanks to” e-mail and I will contact you when there are interesting new things.

Regards, Wim