I recieve e-mail notification of new postings ok, but when I click on the link to see them, all I get is a 404 error " the page cannot be displayed " etc.

Any idea why this should be and how I might fix it ?

Cheers.

PS. It's not on just my computer, and the URL to the forum is correct.

Only the ending is different, on the actual page it ends with : =2&PagePosition=1

And on the e-mail with : =2&ThreadPage=1

Any help ?

On the email setup page you need to put in the correct URL to your forum, if this is incorrect the link in the emails won't point to the right place.

Hi boRg,

yeah, was the first thing I checked, just double-checked and looks ok is : http://www.mywebsite.co.uk/forum - http://www.mywebsite.co.uk/forum I assume you don't include the default.asp part ?

As I mention above the link generated for the e-mails is the same as the page apart from the ending, is this what should happen, or should it be exactly the same as the page URL of the posting ?

If so, can you explain why it's generating this difference and how to stop it please ?

If it is normal, why doesn't it work ?

Cheers.

The ending should be different in each email.

If your email settings page reads:-

http://www.mywebsite.co.uk/forum - http://www.mywebsite.co.uk/forum

Then it's not setup correctly, unless your cdomain name is mywebwsite.co.uk you need to change this to your own web sites domain name

The link does have the correct ending, the only reason why you would get the 404 error is if the link is incorrectly setup.

Have a look at the begining part of the link when viewing topics on the forum, then match it against the link in the email, you may have done somthing like a spelling misstake or a comma instead of a dot. Ingnore the part after the ? it's the begining part of the link that you need to look at.

Have double-checked, the address is correct.

The forum's at http://www.solent-fishing-guide.co.uk/forum/default.asp - http://www.solent-fishing-guide.co.uk/forum/default.asp

Take a look, sign up and post something if you've time, I'll reply and hopefully you'll see for yourself.

Might it be something to do with having a physical path to the database and removing the server.MapPath comment from the common.asp files ?

I had a look and I see the problem, the . is being removed between display_topic_threadsasp, this is a problem with the CDONTS email component, the only way around this is to try and make the link shorter by moving the forum to another folder, or use another email compoent.

If you are on a Win2k server, you should have CDOSYS which doesn't suffer from this problem.

Thanks for testing it out chaps, and well spotted, I've just noticed it myself and see exactly what you mean about losing the dot.

I've contacted my hosting company about this and they say it's not CDONTS because if you copy and paste the url to the browser it works, which it does. Make any sense to you ?

I'm waiting to hear if they have CDOSYS, in the meantime, can you explain how I make the link shorter, by moving the forum to another folder, that'll make it longer won't it ?

Cheers,

Chris.

The removing the dot in links is something I have come across quite a umber of times with CDONTS and is a bug with the component so your hosting comapny won't be able to do anything about it.

CDOSYS is part of the OS and as it is not very commonly used most hosts don't even know they have it on there server.

The simplest thing to do is setup the forum to use CDOSYS and then use the email the topic link at the bottom of the posts to test it to see if it works, if it doesn't crash the forum then you have it installed.

My hosting company begs to differ and says it's not CDONTS but a bug in the forum software !

Anyhow, I tried switching to CDOSYS and e-mailing myself [separate e-mail address], but didn't receive anything so I guess the server doesn't support it.

Switched back to CDONTS and did the same, recieved an e-mail ok and guess what, the link worked !

However, when I posted another message as a new member, the link on the e-mail was longer, =4&ThreadPage=1 had been added, and this didn't work.

So I guess I've got to shorten it somehow ? Do I just get rid of the forum folder and move everything up one into the root of my web, but keep the other folders, ie Admin,Images etc ?

Cheers,

Chris.

Trust me it is a bug with CDONTS, I've come across it before with long links, but not in the forum software before. If there was a bug like you say in the forum software then I would have dozens on emails on it within hours. Also there is nothing in the forum software that would strip out the dot as I would have to code that in, which I know I haven't.

Try changing the name of the folder the forum is in to say 'wwf' or something sort, then see if it works OK.

Never doubted you for a minute !

Renamed forum folder to wsf, have tested it and IT WORKS !!

Is that it, should it be ok from now on ?

New url is http://www.solent-fishing-guide.co.uk/wsf/default.asp - http://www.solent-fishing-guide.co.uk/wsf/default.asp  if you want to check for youself.

Thanks very much for your help boRg, hopefully I can get on with linking what looks an excellent program to my site now. Hope my visitors enjoy it.

Thanks again,

Chris.