Can't get past step 4 "Add Form"

[Ramey]

Installed fine on client's WinNT host server, but now cannot add a form. The process halts after the fourth "add form" step ("database setup"). After adjusting the field sizes and using Smart Fill for the field names, clicking "continue" just causes the process to hang...just can't seem to get to step 5 ("field types").

I've searched through the forums, have added the following to config.php:

$g_session_type = "database";
$g_default_error_reporting = 1;

Also checked global/themes.php for trailing slashes:

$g_smarty->template_dir = "$g_root_dir/themes/$theme";
$g_smarty->compile_dir = "$g_root_dir/themes/$theme/cache";

We've used 1.5.1 successfully in multiple LAMP instances, but it could be Windows weirdness that I'm experiencing here... I'm really not that familiar with the particulars for a Win server, so any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

[Ben]

Hi Ramey,

Hmm! So it just hangs at that point?

Step 5 *is* special. It does some stuff on the backend to load each of your pages into hidden iframes in the pages. That then lets the JS parse the content of the pages and figure out the field types for each field, and pre-populate multi-select field and more. I think there's about 3 levels of backup code going on, to ensure the pages end up in the iframes. Sounds like something is maybe failing.

If it's hanging, how long do you wait? Also, are the forms you're adding on the same domain as the Form Tools installation?

[Ramey]

If it's hanging, how long do you wait? Also, are the forms you're adding on the same domain as the Form Tools installation?

I suppose we'd wait indefinitely; since the page either would go blank (white screen, no browser-rendered code) or sometimes we'd see an error about an undefined index in the Smarty directory -- wish I copied that down now.

The single form was in the same domain, but inside a CMS -- we're using MODx in this instance. We've used FT successfully with MODx on Linux servers, many times. This is our first attempt at using both on a Windows server.

Since the client was getting anxious yesterday, we reverted to 1.5.1 and I found an earlier post that you had made on the old forum about Windows servers having trouble with email addresses written as "Person Name <person@company.com>". So I changed the notifier sending address to simply "person@company.com" and all was well.

I have to say that FT 2.0 looks awesome though, and we're planning on upgrading to it quickly on our LAMP setups. Thanks for building such a great app.

[Ben]

Huh! Good to know.

Years ago, my first ever job was working as a support tech at a software company and they estimated that between 90-95% of all (non-user related) problems they encountered was due to the sofware running on Window's servers.

Nothing's changed. I will keep my eyes open for this issue, though - thanks for the post.

- Ben

[Ramey]

...they estimated that between 90-95% of all (non-user related) problems they encountered was due to the sofware running on Window's servers.

No kidding. The client's in-house IT staff wouldn't budge from their preexisting Win server configuration either. All attempts to get them to switch to a Linux setup for their web site (only) fell on deaf ears... but we'll keep trying!