So we have a client that creates "training packages" and then uploads them via ftp to their website. They create the training packages in PowerPoint, and then use some program to convert them into html/swf files and package them within a folder. When they upload, they use Filezilla, and just transfer the entire folder over. The folder is uniquely named, uses no spaces or special characters.
These files have uploaded fine for about a year. Recently, they've run into a problem. Whenever they try to upload training package folder, they are immediately presented with the "This file already exists, do you want to overwrite?" message. Except... the folder they're moving is brand new, and the file it's asking to overwrite DOESN'T EXIST. When they choose "Overwrite" the file looks like it transfers, but the file size is wrong, and the training package doesn't work correctly.
This happens with every training package they try to upload. It's not just a badly outputted package. Also, it's always the same file that has the problem--it's the main "player" for the training package, and though it contains different content for every package, it is the same file name (cplayer.swf) every time.
Things they've tried without success:
-Re-uploading the file again by itself, and overwriting
-Deleting the "bad" file and re-uploading the single file - Get the overwrite message again, even though the file DOES NOT EXIST.
-Renaming the file on the server and re-uploading the single file - Get the overwrite message.
-Renaming the single file locally within the package and uploading/renaming it - Won't let us rename because the file already exists.
-Used another FTP client - Same results as above, so not a client specific problem.
-Used a different FTP login - Same results as above, so not a permissions problem.
Other things of note:
-The file is small--it's not a time out problem. Plus, all other files upload fine, and some are a lot larger.
-They've emailed this file to me, and I've uploaded it successfully.
I am completely at my wits end. Does anyone have any ideas where I can at least troubleshoot a little further?
Thanks for the non-help, the downvote, and the general lack of response on what was a pretty serious issue for me.
In case anyone else has a similar problem, here's what was going on:
Virus software (specifically Malware Bytes) was blocking THIS ONE SINGLE FILE. All I had to do was exclude the folder that contained the file.
Related
I made sure every single thing is correct with the related file names and their content addresses and so on yet I always get stuck upon executing the !sudo line command which should open and use a given file, it returns this error :
"Error: Cannot read file '/content/-p': No such file or directory"
As I have already said, the file does exist and is located in my Google Drive, I even copy pasted its specific path to make sure I put it right and yet the issue is still there, why? how can I solve it?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Two scenarios in my experience:
(1) It's the first time running the lines of code after mounting your google drive and for no apparent reason it runs for tens of minutes, produces not output, raises an error (e.g. "File does not exist"), and the session crashes; you repeat the exact same steps, then it works.
(2) There are thousands (or more) files within the folder that contains the file you're trying to read or write; when a google drive folder contains many files (i.e. thousands or more) it may crash for that reason.
We have a process in place built on Excel VBA that uploads a file to FTP Server. On the other side, our client downloads it. Very randomly, they complain that the file they received is blank (the file name is the same though). We then check at our end and see that the file that was uploaded was never blank. So here comes the problem: we're always arguing whether it was our error or theirs.
I figured that there might be a couple of reasons behind it but I have a few questions to ask before coming to conclusions:
If, say, the file was never uploaded (a possibility), what happens when the client runs a download process at their end? Can that download process generate a blank file with the same name as our output file? It sounds impossible to me but since the client is following up on this issue, I have to ask this silly question.
How does the mechanism work - what are the steps that happen on FTP server the moment my process completes uploading the file? I sometimes see that as soon as I upload the file, a 0kb file is created and then a second later (or less) the file with right size appears? Could it be possible that their process is running right before this actual file creation?
Thank you in advance for your help!
Remote clients will upload images (and perhaps some instructional files in specially formatted text) to a "drop folder." Once the upload is complete we need to begin processing these images. It would be an easy, but flawed, solution to just have a script automatically begin processing any files in the folder every few seconds (the files can be move out of the folder once processed); but problems would arise when attempting to process large images which are only partially transfered.
What are some tricks I can use to ensure the files are fully uploaded before processing them?
A few of my own thoughts:
The script can check the validity of the file; ie, a partial jpeg would result in an error and you could respond to that error in the script, this would be fairly CPU intensive though. Some files have special markers on the end, but I can't count on this, I'm not sure what formats I'll be dealing with.
I've heard of "file handles" but haven't really figured out the basics of what they are and how I can tell if there is a "file handle" on a particular file. Basically the FTP daemon (actually, I'm on Windows, so "service") would keep a "handle" on the file while it's being uploaded and you would know not to process that file. These are just a few of my thoughts but I'm not really sure if they will work or if there are better or more accepted ways of solving this problem.
If you have an server-side script upload system (PHP, ASP, JSP, whatever), you could instruct the script to call another script to process the files, or to create a flag-file indicating the upload is done, something like this.
If your server is Linux-based, you can use lsof to check if the file is open. As your ftp/script/cgi will close the file after upload completes, lsof will not show the file in the list.
If your server is Windows-based, you can use Process Explorer to list the open files.
By what method are your users uploading the images?
I am trying to watch files in a directory to determine when files are opened/accessed. I thought FileSystemWatcher would do the trick using the event Changed.
Problem is that some applications do not create a lock on the file they open/access or change either the date modified or date accessed (even after fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 0). Notepad for example. Apparently is makes a copy of the file in memory and plays with it there until you save it. Nor does it update the Date Accessed.
How can I monitor a directory of files and be notified when a file is simply opened/accessed by any program (e.g. Notepad)? Files may be opened from another computer, not necessarily on the computer running the "watcher".
I found lots of similar questions but did not see one focusing on file "access".
This is quite normal. Updating an existing file is quite dangerous since it can cause irretrievable data loss. A disk error (like disk full) while writing is very bad news. The common algorithm used:
rename the original file
write a new file using the original name
no error: delete the renamed file
error: delete the new file, rename original file back
Clearly this doesn't cause a Changed event to be raised, no file was changed.
Sorry, I didn't read the question well enough. There is no notification whatsoever for an app just opening a file for reading. FSW can only detect changes to the file system. There is no ready alternative either, this requires a custom file system filter driver that snoops on driver requests. Like the kind that SysInternals' ProcMon utility uses. I'm not aware of such a driver ready for use in a C# program, you can't write them in C# either. This just isn't a common requirement.
On my site a user may upload a file (pic, zip, audio, video, whatever). He then may decide to replace it with a newer revision. This user may upload a file, make a post then decide to put up a new revision replacing the old (lets say its a large zip or tar.gz file). Theres a good chance people may be downloading it if he sent out an email or even im for the home user.
Problem. I need to replace the file and people may be downloading and it may be some minutes before it is deleted. I dont want my code to stall until i cant delete or check every second to see if its unused (especially bad if another user can start and he takes long creating a cycle).
How do i delete the file while users are downloading the file? i dont care if they stop i just care that the file can be replaced and new downloads are the new revision.
What about referencing the files indirectly?
A mapping script, maps a virtual file entry from your site to a real file . If the user wants to upload a new revision of his file you just update the mapping, not the real file.
You can install a daily task that scans all files and deletes all files without a mapping and without open connections.
lajuette's answer is right, the easiest solution is to work around the file locking altogether:
When a user uploads file foo.zip, internally store it as foo-v1.zip.
Create a mapping file somewhere (database, code, whatever) that maps foo.zip to foo-v1.zip.
Rather than exposing a direct link to the file, expose a link to a service that gets the file: mysite.com/Download?foo.zip or something. This service uses the mapping to determine which version of the file to send to the client.
When a new version is uploaded, create foo-v2.zip and update the mapping file.
It wouldn't be that hard to write a scheduled task that cleans up old, un-mapped files.
If your oppose to a database and If the filenames are in a fix format (such as user/id.ext) you could append the id with a revision number and enumerate the folder using a pattern (user/id-*) and use the latest revision.