Topic: Um, help, album.pl gone psychotic?

[Spktyr]

I just tried to install album on my website, and there's a lot of stuff that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. On the initial setup, I get a lot of garbage characters and lines that make no sense. I have removed and reinstalled it per the instructions, and it still doesn't work right - the end results just look bizarre. Below are screen shots taken of the offending screens. Note that I get similar random garbage whether I installed it initially or on a reinstall.

Someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

http://www.dallasdrivers.org/pictures/albuminsanity/

[Mike Bobbitt]

That *is* funky.

One of the things I'd say is wrong is that the lines have been skewed in your album_strings.txt file. If even one line is added or deleted, none of the strings will load correctly, which is what appears to be happening. Try replacing album_strings.txt with a "new" copy and see what happens.

From there, we should be able to isolate any other problems that may be occurring... (I assume you're installing V5.7, by the looks of it, right?)

[pardus]

Mine is messed up exactly like yours. I think there is a problem with the album_strings.txt file. There is too many carriage returns and is breaking up lines. I am using BBedit on OSX so it shouldn't be messing the file. Perhaps the ZIP is screwed.

Mike, if you have a moment, can you check or please fix that file and inform us when you do.

sample from album_strings.txt
#######
Generating Static HTML for...
Created HTML for
photo(s)
and
movie(s)
in
album(s).
photo
movie
album
thumbnails were found.
Jump to:
Go
ERROR!
ERROR: Line
Cannot open file:
Cannot open temp file for writing:

[Mike Bobbitt]

Hi pardus,

Will do. What version are you running? I haven't touched 5.7 since August, and the 6.0 seems to be working for me.

[pardus]

I am running 5.7
However the 6.0 version looks like it has the same carriage returns. I tried unzipping it in Windows to see if there were any differences and i didnt notice any.

Take a look at the album_string.txt files and let me know if they are right. When I run it, these text strings are in the wrong spot?

http://www.dvsn.com/album/album_strings-57.txt

http://www.dvsn.com/album/album_strings-60.txt

This is the site where I am trying to implement it.

http://mountseymour.com/cgi/album/album.pl

[Mike Bobbitt]

Yeah, that's wrong for sure. There are blank lines between each string, so they're all out of whack. But when I check the zip file, it's all good...

Did you, by chance, FTP the strings file over in binary mode?

[Spktyr]

Same thing here - d/led fresh version, no change. Still weird stuff.
Uploaded it in ASCII mode, too.

The server is a RH7 Linux box running Apache, FYI. And yes, it's 5.7.

This does the same no matter what platform I unzip or install it from - WinXP, MacOS X 10.2, MacOS 9.2, etc., etc.

[Mike Bobbitt]

Darn it! I can't reproduce it! I've downloaded both zips on RedHat and Windows, they look OK to me...

The 5.7 zip hasn't changed in 3 months... If you want to send me your FTP info, I can take a look at what's going on...

I'm just about stumped!

[pardus]

Thanks for trying to help us out Mike.

Here is a screen shot of the text file in BBedit. Can you tell me if this is how it is supposed to look?

http://www.dvsn.com/album/strings.gif

the following section here really looks wacked:
#######
Created HTML for
photo(s)
and
movie(s)
in
album(s).
photo
movie
album
thumbnails were found.
Jump to:
Go
#######

Is it possible to send us a fresh copy of the album_strings.txt file? maybe you could even post on your site with a link directly to it. that way we can all see it exactly the same and cut and paste into a new text file.

I think Spktyr and i are both on macs. I dont have an actual PC to try it on, I am just emulating winXP on my mac. That may be the problem.

[Mike Bobbitt]

Hey pardus,

That looks right...

I'm on IM with Spktyr right now, and we were able to confirm that it was a problem with his copy of the strings file. I uploaded a copy of album_strings.txt using ASCII mode, and it fixed it right up. He's trying to figure out how things got munged...

Somewhere along the way, it looks like your files are being converted without your knowledge, and your editor automatucally shows them in ASCII format regardless of how they're stored... Outsmarted again!

[pardus]

Oh my God...I can't believe it. I downloaded a fresh copy, unzipped it and uploaded in ASCII. No dice, still messed up. So, I thought I would try something crazy....I uploaded in binary and it worked????what is going on. Anyway, all is well I guess...haha

[Mike Bobbitt]

Well I can't explain that one! But hey, it's working now and that's cool...