Troubleshooting Frontpage

Frontpage is a very particular program which requires a great amount of restrictions to be met. To avoid problems, please try to keep your site below 75 files.

Frontpage extensions are fragile. It's easy to damage the extensions by using FTP in a Frontpage directory. You can maintain some directories with Frontpage and some with FTP, but mixing the two is NOT recommended. If you decide to do it anyway, be aware there is a $5 charge to fix corrupted extensions.

How do you make Frontpage pages work in non-Microsoft browsers?
Can broken links slow down my publishing?
I published but my page is missing?
I get a Frontpage Extensions error when clicking submit.
My buttons, forms, counters, or themes don't work?
Error: Root Web Busy
Error: NTLM Authentication
Error: Frontpage Extensions not installed
Error: Frontpage Extensions not configured for mail
Error: 405 Method Not Allowed
Error: Home directory inaccessible
Error: Operation requires author permission
Server times out when publishing large sites.
Frontpage repeatedly prompts for userid when using proxy.
How do I back up my live web site to my computer?

How do you make Frontpage pages work in non-Microsoft browsers?

In Frontpage, click Tools > Page Options > Compatibility.
For Browsers, click Both Internet Explorer and Navigator.
Uncheck "Enabled with Frontpage Server Extensions"
For compatibility with Netscape 4, uncheck all boxes.
For compatibility with Netscape 6 & 7, leave the CSS boxes checked. (screenshot)

Can broken links slow down my publishing?

Yes. If your web site has any broken links, it can cause time out errors during the publishing process. To fix broken links on the server, you need to open your web site directly on the server and recalculate links:

In Frontpage, click File > Open Front Page Web.
Click More Webs.
Enter your domain name and click on List Webs.
Double click on the web you are working on. (Usually <Root Web>.)
Enter your user id and password.
Pull down the Tools menu and select Recalculate Hyperlinks. It is recommended that you do this every time you publish.
If you would like monthly broken link reports for $5/mo, please contact us.
You can also make a custom 404 page. Name it 404.htm and tell us where it is, and we'll activate it for you for free.

My buttons, forms, counters, or themes don't work?

Sometimes after publishing your site, Frontpage extended features called web-bots (forms, counters, navigation bars, etc.) fail to work and cause the server to time out during publishing. To fix a broken web bot, open your web directly on the server as follows:

In Frontpage, click File > Open Front Page Web.
Click More Webs.
Enter your domain name and click on List Webs.
Double click on the web you are working on. (Usually <Root Web>.)
Enter your user id and password.
You can now edit your site just as you do when it is on your local hard drive. Open the page with the broken bot(s). If you are not sure which web bot has failed (forms, counters, etc.) and is causing the time out error, you may need to do this for every page that has a bot.
Remove the components from your web page and re-add them.
Alternatively, you can use a more robust form, counter, nav-bar, search, tab, or button.
Note: Frontpage 97, 98, 2000, and 2002 themes are not compatible with each other.

My forms still aren't working.

Make sure your web site domain name (your_company.com) is used in the form. In the HTML view of Frontpage:

Change:S-Email-Address="yourname@aol.com"
To:S-Email-Address="sales@your_company.com"

Your form will work, and we can forward sales@your_company.com to any address you like.

Error: NTLM Authentication problem

If you still get this error after following Microsoft's instructions, try installing Web Folders.
If you find Web Folders already installed, Web Folders may be corrupted. Please uninstall and then reinstall Web Folders. Please reboot your computer afterward.
Finally, if you've done steps 1 and 2, please ensure you are _not_ going through a proxy. (Frontpage has a tough time going through a proxy.) You can also have your admin check your proxy settings in IE.

Error: Root Web Busy

FTP to your site and remove the service.lck file in /www/_vti_pvt. This usually happens when an FP session is interrupted before completion. If you get this error when submitting a form, please see Q218464.

Error: Front Page Extensions not installed

We often see this error being reported even when the extensions have been installed. If you get this error, please contact support and we'll make sure the extensions are installed and repair them if necessary. NOTE: The extensions are easily corrupted. Please use only FP Explorer to update your web site on the server, not FTP. There is a $5 charge for resetting up extensions.

Error: Front Page Extensions not configured for email.

This error can be fixed by doing two things. 1. Open your site in Frontpage 2000 and click Tools > Recalculate Hyperlinks. 2. Send us an email with the email address your forms to send mail from.

Error: 405 Method Not Allowed

These errors occur because the _vti_bin virtual directory is not marked executable. (Q238461) Please contact us to get it fixed.

Error: Home directory inaccessible

This problem occurs when the home directory of the FTP site does not exist or you do not have Read permissions to the home directory. Please contact us to get it fixed.

Error: Operation requires author permission.

Permissions may not have been set for your site. Please contact us to get it fixed.

Clicking submit gives me a Frontpage Extensions error.

This problem can occur if the content was copied or FTPd rather than published using Frontpage. You can recalculate hyperlinks to fix this problem. If recalculating hyperlinks from Frontpage doesn't work from your end, please email tech support asking to check server extensions & recalculate hyperlinks. There is a $5 charge to resetup extensions.

I published but my page is missing!

This will happen when the Destination Web Name is filled in when publishing to our server. This box should be left blank. If you put any other name in this box, it will create a subdirectory off your root web and copy all your files into it. Your site will exist under a subdirectory instead of at the top level where it should be.

Server times out when publishing large sites.

This difficulty arises when the uploading link times out in the process of copying the web to our server. The only suggestion Microsoft has offered so far is to break the main web into a group of sub webs on your PC, then upload these individually. If this problem persists for you, please contact support.

I'm using a proxy and Frontpage repeatedly prompts for username and password.

To solve this problem, you must create a registry key to add the manual proxy configuration option to Frontpage 2000.

How do I back up my live web site to my computer?

You can publish your web to a folder on your hard drive. For example, you can make a backup copy of your entire web by publishing it to a new disk-based location, such as C:\Backup. Publishing a web rather than just copying files ensures that all necessary files are saved and in the correct structure.

On the File menu, click Open Web.
Enter the full URL of your site & press OK.
Enter your user-id and password, press OK.
Once your web site has loaded, pull down the File menu again. Click Publish.
Enter the destination on your hard drive, for example c:\backup
Your web site will be published to your hard drive.

More help:

Microsoft's Frontpage Support Center

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