8. Troubleshooting

Your first Interchange page should have displayed as described in your browser. If it didn't, you need to figure out what went wrong. Most of the time, overlooked details are the problem. Double-checking your typing is a good habit to get into.

The following is a troubleshooting checklist to use when you run into problems:

  1. Have you created directories with the proper names in the proper locations? (See Appendix A for a full directory and file structure of the tutorial catalog.)
  2. Have you misspelled any file names or put them in the wrong directories? Are the files and parent directories readable by the interch user? Double-check with the ls command.
  3. Did you type letters in the proper case? Remember that both Unix and Interchange are case-sensitive, and for the most part you may not switch upper- and lower-case letters.
  4. Did you type all punctuation, ITL tags, and HTML tags correctly?
  5. Did you use whitespace correctly in the cases where it mattered? Remember to use tabs when tabs are called for (in lists and database text files).
  6. Did you restart Interchange if you changed anything in interchange.cfg or catalog.cfg, or if you're in a high-traffic mode?
  7. Check your catalog error log, error.log in your tutorial catalog directory, to see if Interchange reported any errors.
  8. Check the Interchange server error log, error.log in the Interchange software directory, to see if it had problems loading the catalog at all.
  9. View the HTML source of any catalog pages that are loading incorrectly to check for a coding error. The problem may reveal itself when you see what HTML the browser is getting.