Hannon Hill - Enterprise Web Content Management

Every once in a while I’ll have a client or a colleague report to me that they are having difficulty publishing an asset (or assets) from Cascade Server.  Given the flexibility of the application, problems like this can stem from a variety of different settings.  The next time you attempt to track down a publishing problem for yourself (or one of your Users), step through the following checklist for the best chance of staying sane:

Is the Asset publishable?
This seems like a no-brainer, but you’ve got to start somewhere.  Check the System pane and make sure that the option to Include when publishing is selected.  When this option is not selected, the User will receive an error message in the interface (but it is up to them as to whether or not they decide to tell you about it).  By that same token, make sure that the asset’s parent Folders are publishable as well.

Is the Destination enabled and does the User have access to the Destination?
If you click on a Destination you will see an Activation field in the Properties section.  You’ll want to make sure that the field reads Destination is enabled.  If it does not, simply edit the Destination and check the corresponding box to enable the Destination.  

You should also notice a Groups field which lists the Groups to which the Destination is applicable.  If the User having problems is not a member of one of these Groups, either add the User to one of the Groups or edit the Destination and add the User’s Group to the Applicable for Groups field.

Both of these settings will display a message to the User in the interface giving a hint as to what settings need to be modified.  Again, it’s a matter of whether or not your User is going to tell you about the error message they received.

Can the Configuration be published?
Each output on a Page has a corresponding Configuration.  For each output that is not being published properly, make sure that the Configuration for that output is publishable.  This is done at the Configuration level by checking the box labeled Configuration can be published.

Does the Content Type allow for the Configuration to be published?
Clicking on the Content Type for a Page will take you to the Properties screen for that Content Type.  Pay careful attention to the Configuration Publishing field as it denotes which Configurations will be published along with to which Destination(s) they will be published (if any).  Make sure that the Destinations to which you expect to publish are selected here.

Have you checked the Publish Queue?
This is another fairly obvious item, but occasionally we all get impatient and expect our assets to publish immediately when we tell them to.  If there happen to be a lot of concurrent Users in the system publishing - or - there are other large scheduled publish jobs occurring at the time, a User’s publish job could potentially be delayed by several minutes (or possibly longer).  So, while each Site can process up to 2 jobs at once, it is always possible that there are still more jobs in the Publish Queue ahead of the job in question.  On a related note, if you have the necessary Role ability, it is possible to re-order jobs in the publish queue just in case you have a critical job that needs to be processed ahead of all others.

Have you checked the Publish Message for errors?
Assuming the asset was processed by the Publish Queue, there should be a Publish Message on the Dashboard of the User who published the asset.  The message will contain general information about the publish (like how long it took, which assets were published to which Destinations, etc) along with any errors that might have prevented the asset from publishing.

Does the FTP/SFTP or OS user have Write permissions? 
Based on past experience, the majority of publishing issues that I see are a result of incorrect web server permissions.  When publishing from Cascade Server, the user account supplied at the Transport level (for FTP/SFTP) must have write access to the directories to which Cascade Server is publishing.  If you are using a File System publish (or a mapped drive), the OS user that started the Cascade Server process must have write permissions to the publish directories.

We provide an easy way to test these things in the Administration area.  If you click on any Transport in the system you will see an option on the left to Test Transport.  On a similar note, you’ll see a Test Destination link on the left hand side when viewing a Destination.  If either one of these tests fail, you can bet that any publishes using these assets will fail as well.  A failed test will provide you with an error message in the interface that you can copy/paste and send to us for further review if needed.

Submit the log file(s) to Hannon Hill for further review
If the publish message doesn’t contain any errors, grab the latest log file (and/or the log file from the day on which the error occurred) and send it to support [at] hannonhill.com along with a brief summary of the problem.  The log file(s) can be found on the Administration dashboard under the Logs tab - or - on the application server under the directory \tomcat\logs.

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At this point you will probably be saying one of three things:

“Thanks! These steps helped me track down the problem.  You are my hero, Tim!”

Great! Glad I could help out.  Don’t forget to tell all of your friends about me!

“Well, I found an error...but I have no idea what the error means. Thanks for nothing, Tim.”

I hear you.  Since the errors returned could be from a number of different things (the web server OS, the database driver, the FTP/SFTP server, etc), we don’t have much control over the messages themselves.  Some of these messages can be very cryptic.  If you need help deciphering any of these errors, always feel free to contact us at support [at] hannonhill.com and we’ll be happy to help out.

“I still see no errors and I continue to have problems getting the asset to publish to my web server.  Thanks for wasting my time, Tim.”

If this is the case, there is a chance that the asset is publishing to the web server successfully but it is ending up in a place where you aren’t expecting it.  If you have access to the web server, try searching for the asset and see if you notice any results that match the name and have a timestamp that coincides with the time at which the asset was published from Cascade Server.  An asset in Cascade Server will publish to a directory on the web server in a location which is determined by a combination of the Transport directory, an optional Destination directory, and the Folder hierarchy (in the Home Area).

Of course there is always a chance that you’ve come across the latest and greatest defect.  If you believe you’ve stumbled across one, don’t ever hesitate to contact us at support [at] hannonhill.com and we’ll work with you to track down the problem.