Community @ The Turning Gate

I've banged my head on the desk so many times I just assume odd things are the cache. If you ever see the "wrong" image or something about it that hasn't updated, flush the browser cache.

I wish Chrome (my only browser) had a development mode that would temporarily disable caching.

There's a menu option in Chrome to flush the cache. That brings up a dialog. You can uncheck everything but "Cached images and files." That will removed cached images (an issue that will come up many times while publishing images).

Chrome's cache is also going to bite you while modifying CSS files.

I'm guessing it's your browser's cache. Try flushing the cache from your browser and then reloading the pages in question.

I don't think you want "Spectral+SC" in the Prepend Font-family w/ box. Try "Spectral SC".

If I had a link to your site I could quickly confirm.

I think that's a comment about HTML and CSS

One way to debug this type of thing is to learn how to use your browser's inspector. There you can enter the name of the of a font and instantly see the change.

Yup, did all that already and a few similar ideas along that line.

Whoa! Deleting preferences and then publishing worked! WTF?!

Write that down!

I can't explain it. I tried replicating all the strange problems I was having originally, but now it's all working. I can't reproduce the duplicate albums, the failed deletions, etc. Everything is normal.

I can only say I was having a bad day with Lightroom. Seems it, Backlight, and my server were out of sync somehow.

I still suspect I have some oddities with htaccess, but will start a new thread for things as I find them.

Let's call this thread closed. I'd rather forget all this. I just gives me a headache, and I wasn't even drinking.

I'm finding problems. The first time I went to the home page, it work. Then I tried the Galleries but it crashed with a SQL error, and php dump. I refreshed the page and then it rendered correctly. Then I tried to go back to the home page and it wouldn't render. After that, none of the pages would render.

I think you're at something going wrong related to the server more so than Backlight.

Looking at my broswer's inspector, loading the home page got me this:

Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (Internal Server Error) /backlight/publisher/resource.php?template=6&extension=css&name=style
Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (Internal Server Error) foto.descan.com/
GET http://foto.descan.com/ 500 (Internal Server Error)

Eventually the server request timed out and I got this instead of your home page.

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator at root@localhost to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

One more attempt to refresh the home page and I got this:

SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 10 disk I/O error sql: 'select * from settings where 1=1' params: array ( )|#0 /nhldata/872/164872/data/web/foto/htdocs/backlight/framework/dao/PdoExtended.php(540): PdoExtended->_throwSqlQueryException('select * from s...', Array, 'SQLSTATE[HY000]...') #1 /nhldata/872/164872/data/web/foto/htdocs/backlight/framework/dao/PdoExtended.php(156): PdoExtended->_prepareAndExecuteSqlQuery('select * from s...', Array) #2 /nhldata/872/164872/data/web/foto/htdocs/backlight/framework/dao/GenericSettingsDAO.php(32): PdoExtended->selectRows('select * from s...', Array) #3 /nhldata/872/164872/data/web/foto/htdocs/backlight/designer/application/helpers/ApplicationConfigManager.php(10): GenericSettingsDAO->getData(Object(ApplicationConfigManager)) #4 /nhldata/872/164872/data/web/foto/htdocs/backlight/designer/application/helpers/ApplicationHelper.php(26): ApplicationConfigManager->__construct(Object(SettingsDAO), Array) #5 /nhldata/872/164872/data/web/foto/htdocs/backlight/framework/helpers/GenericApplicationHelper.php(28): ApplicationHelper->createConfigManager() #6 /nhldata/872/164872/data/web/foto/htdocs/backlight/designer/application/init.php(9): GenericApplicationHelper->getConfigManager() #7 /nhldata/872/164872/data/web/foto/htdocs/backlight/framework/init.php(144): require_once('/nhldata/872/16...') #8 /nhldata/872/164872/data/web/foto/htdocs/index.php(19): require_once('/nhldata/872/16...') #9 {main}|URL: /index.php

One more attempt to refresh the home page and I got the top banner, menus, and part of the main content. But it still timed out.

One more attempt (the fifth?) and the home page rendered completely and in normal time.

Robert,

Yes, you can do all you ask about and more. I have Backlight and the Wordpress theme. The site's design is done in Backlight, and it will export the design for you to use in Wordpress.

Once you have the site designed, you'll only need to go to Wordpress to add a non-photo page, write blog posts, etc. You'll manage all your photos from LightRoom.

You're doing something similar to what I've done. I have all my publically published photos in a single location. I have a few private sections in their own directories, including one for client proofs. You have the option for making those password protected if you wish.

For client proofs I use the fantastic Client Response add-on. I also have a couple other private sections that are only available by invitation. There's the Cart add-on where you can setup images to sell.

There's the new Backlight web pages for administration, replacing the cumbersome method previously used within Lightroom's web module.

Once the site's design is complete, all of your photo management can be done within Lightroom. I have well over 100 galleries/directories, and each of them have 10-100 photos in them. All of that is being managed entirely within Lightroom by clicking and dragging images.

How easy or difficult all this is depends on your level of skill. If you wrote your current site in HTML, you should have enough knowledge to complete it. Getting a basic Wordpress site built is pretty straightforward. Designing your Backlight pages is even easier, especially if you know HTML and CSS.

I think the answer to how difficult this is really comes down to how well you understand web servers, browsers, and HTML. Understanding that will be a big help. Most of the grief comes as a result of venturing off the well-trodden path. If you're skilled enough you can do compelling and creative things.

There's plenty of people here to provide help, and I'll keep my eye out for your questions too.

I've nearly completed my own site which is very close to what you're asking for. I'd like to off load some of the great effort by the moderators. They've helped me over the years! I've been using TTG since the first release. I tend to dig deeper that most, and get into far corners I'm anxious to finish a few final pieces and show off my new site.

Understood. There's just something really strange going on. And the more I poke around, the more strange it gets.

I contacted my host's sr technical staff and they tell me it's pretty much an Apache server. They have Nginx running as a proxy for static caching, antibot, and other things. It should just be a normal Apache server. The htaccess files are supported too.

And there's something odd about the htaccess files. I'm findin if I just delete them, things start working (or at least somethings start working).

I think I'm also running into conflicts with the anti hotlinking protection in the cpanel, as well as with the iThemes Security WP plugin. Both of those are writing rules into htaccess.

Let me try and get things clean up as much as possible. Then try to find a basic failure. Right now I think i've gotten myself tied in knots.

Still, there is something really strange going on and I'll need help, once I can clean things up.

One thing for the time being, where can I learn about what Backlight wants in the htaccess file? Which directories does it want to find this?

I migrated from CE4 to Backlight, keeping all my directories. I wonder if older htaccess files/rules are causing conflicts.

Hmm, I just saw the note about Backroom and Nginx. Indeed my server is running Nginx, and I'm wondering if my strangeness is related.

The docs for adding the Nginx code doesn't explain where to add that code, or exactly how to add it.

Another thing that has me confused is how there are .htaccess files in several directories, but I thought Nginx didn't use them. Yet when I ask my hosting service's tech support how to add the configuration code for Nginx I was told to add it to my .htaccess file.

I had another strange problem where my WordPress page (about my photos) wouldn't appear under my Photos directory. Photos is controlled by Backllight (templates, album sets, albums, and photos), while the WordPress about page is generated by WordPress. I was getting a 404 error that I couldn't explain. Then I found that if I deleted the .htaccess in /photos/ it all worked.

So now I'm further down the rabbit hole, asking about .htaccess files on my Nginx installation and if they have anything to do with Backlight. If so, where do I go next to understand how to get Backlight working on my Nginx server.

UPDATE: consulting with my hosting service about their Nginx I'm told it's Nginx on top of Apache (acting as a proxy). They do support htaccess files. So everything in htaccess should work. Still, I'm finding problems and when I delete the Backlight rules from htaccess it solves mysterious problems. All I can say right now is something in htaccess generated by Backlight is causing problems.

I forgot about that file. Looking in it just now, wow, it contains nearly half a million lines! It's well over 100MB. 80,000 lines from just this year, mostly while developing with Backlight.

I've been a TTG user for many years

Let me see if I can get any further or flush out any details. I really do want the LUA code working. I can't think of a good workaround to what I had in CE4.

Hmm. Curious. I verified it does hang LR for me, where I have to restart LR to publish anything after attempting that LUA script. I also have LR Classic 7.

Where to go from here? Is there a cache to clear? Some way to debug this? A log file to generate?