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ignatz · 03-11-2004, 12:06 AM

Part 3 - Basic Troubleshooting

But what if it didn't go well? Well, there's a LOT that can go wrong, considering the many different elements that have to work together to make this happen. Since I'm a newbie myself, I won't try to guess what will go wrong for you. I'll just show you some ways to diagnose what's going on and some places to browse and tweak.

First thing to do if your sites aren't scooping is watch the progress of the program. Unfortunately, that's where batch files don't work so well, because as soon as they're done, the window closes and it all happens far too fast to read. But there is another way. From the start menu, click "run". Type "cmd". This gives you the same command prompt window that your batch file runs from. Now change to the sitescooper directory. Just type "cd c:\program files\palm\sitescooper-3.1.3" or whatever the actual address is for you. (Note that you can also type "cd c:\prog*\pal*\site*" or something like that. Wildcards rock! But wait until you see the power of regular expressions. Coming soon...) Now type the same command that we put into the batch file: "perl sitescooper.pl -misilox". Now when it's done, the window stays open and you can scroll back and have a look. This is probably the single easiest way to see where things are going wrong. Most of the time for me, the problem was that nothing was happening here. Perl wasn't being found or the sites were in the wrong place, etc, etc. Also, if you can't make heads or tails of it, you can copy it all out and paste it into a help request. Then hopefully someone else can descipher it and let you know what's happening.

The next place to check is the documentation. Now I don't want to offend, especially as this whole program impresses the **** out of me, but the docs could be better written. At the least, they could use a better table of contents. But hey, at least you've got some, which is more than you can often say. They are in html form in the "doc" folder. When you open the index file you will not immediately see any links to the other documents. Never fear, it's way down at the bottom of the page. There are good descriptions of how to install on different system that you should double check. Keep in mind that the docs are also dated and don't reflect some of the latest changes. Still, they are how I've learned most of what I've gotten working so use 'em.

If these don't help, then the next step is to start asking. I'll help if I can, and there's lots of others who know more, I'm sure.

03-11-2004, 12:06 AM	#4
ignatz mechanoholic Posts: 582 Karma: 1000217 Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Sarasota, FL Device: Nook STR/iPhone 4S/EVO 4G	Part 3 - Basic Troubleshooting But what if it didn't go well? Well, there's a LOT that can go wrong, considering the many different elements that have to work together to make this happen. Since I'm a newbie myself, I won't try to guess what will go wrong for you. I'll just show you some ways to diagnose what's going on and some places to browse and tweak. First thing to do if your sites aren't scooping is watch the progress of the program. Unfortunately, that's where batch files don't work so well, because as soon as they're done, the window closes and it all happens far too fast to read. But there is another way. From the start menu, click "run". Type "cmd". This gives you the same command prompt window that your batch file runs from. Now change to the sitescooper directory. Just type "cd c:\program files\palm\sitescooper-3.1.3" or whatever the actual address is for you. (Note that you can also type "cd c:\prog\pal\site" or something like that. Wildcards rock! But wait until you see the power of regular expressions. Coming soon...) Now type the same command that we put into the batch file: "perl sitescooper.pl -misilox". Now when it's done, the window stays open and you can scroll back and have a look. This is probably the single easiest way to see where things are going wrong. Most of the time for me, the problem was that nothing* was happening here. Perl wasn't being found or the sites were in the wrong place, etc, etc. Also, if you can't make heads or tails of it, you can copy it all out and paste it into a help request. Then hopefully someone else can descipher it and let you know what's happening. The next place to check is the documentation. Now I don't want to offend, especially as this whole program impresses the **** out of me, but the docs could be better written. At the least, they could use a better table of contents. But hey, at least you've got some, which is more than you can often say. They are in html form in the "doc" folder. When you open the index file you will not immediately see any links to the other documents. Never fear, it's way down at the bottom of the page. There are good descriptions of how to install on different system that you should double check. Keep in mind that the docs are also dated and don't reflect some of the latest changes. Still, they are how I've learned most of what I've gotten working so use 'em. If these don't help, then the next step is to start asking. I'll help if I can, and there's lots of others who know more, I'm sure.