Site Map Issue

[grassfrog]

I just created a website and when I click to generate its sitemap, it says
"Sitemap Created, however there was an error pinging one or more of the search engines"

So I have two questions. First of all, where you can specify which search engines to ping and/or to see which search engines couldn't be pinged when you get this type of error, and 2. if the sitemap has been created, where does it live? When I click View Site Map, it takes me to the home page (I have link juice on or it would 404).

Any thoughts on how to get the sitemap to actually generate? I'm running a brand new instance of 3.1 - nothing special on it. Thanks!

[ccagle8]

is there a sitemap.xml in the root of your website's file system? Also, starting with 3.1, we automatically do not ping search engines (via a setting in gsconfig.php) -- i wonder if that error message is because of that.

[grassfrog]

No, there is no sitemap.xml file in the root.

The error message was probably because I never changed the gsconfig, then, but it sounds like the error is larger than that since no sitemap was created?

[grassfrog]

Ok, this is interesting. I went into SSH and created a sitemap.xml file that was essentially blank. Then I chown'd it to apache and chmod'd it to 777. Then I went back to admin and clicked create sitemap again.

I still got the same error messsage, but the sitemap file was overwritten by GS and now appears properly.

So there is a workaround for it, in case anyone else sees this error.

Thanks Chris - you're the best

[grassfrog]

I have upgraded to 3.1.1 and now the workaround previously suggested does NOT work.

Now, when I click Create Site Map, it says it's created, but it isn't. And if I create a blank sitemap.xml file, then click Create Site Map, here is what ends up getting written there:

XML Parsing Error: no element found
Location: http://smithhomeinspection.com/sitemap.xml
Line Number 1, Column 1:
^

I was about to post this to get help, but checked one more thing.... by changing the permissions on the new sitemap.xml file to the directory owner and chmod'ing to 777, the sitemap is then created properly. Just documenting this in case anyone else comes across the same issue.

Have a super swell day!

[shawn_a]

I have upgraded to 3.1.1 and now the workaround previously suggested does NOT work.

Now, when I click Create Site Map, it says it's created, but it isn't. And if I create a blank sitemap.xml file, then click Create Site Map, here is what ends up getting written there:

XML Parsing Error: no element found
Location: http://smithhomeinspection.com/sitemap.xml
Line Number 1, Column 1:
^

I was about to post this to get help, but checked one more thing.... by changing the permissions on the new sitemap.xml file to the directory owner and chmod'ing to 777, the sitemap is then created properly. Just documenting this in case anyone else comes across the same issue.

Have a super swell day!

conjecturing here.

The way most of the xml code is setup, you cannot create empty files because it first loads it and fails if there is no valid xml structure, this is kind of a painm, we should be checking for zero length files and forcing a write.

I imagine since this file is being created in root, that dir needs write access, I don't know if this is a wise thing to do.

[grassfrog]

I have upgraded to 3.1.1 and now the workaround previously suggested does NOT work.

Now, when I click Create Site Map, it says it's created, but it isn't. And if I create a blank sitemap.xml file, then click Create Site Map, here is what ends up getting written there:

XML Parsing Error: no element found
Location: http://smithhomeinspection.com/sitemap.xml
Line Number 1, Column 1:
^

I was about to post this to get help, but checked one more thing.... by changing the permissions on the new sitemap.xml file to the directory owner and chmod'ing to 777, the sitemap is then created properly. Just documenting this in case anyone else comes across the same issue.

Have a super swell day!

conjecturing here.

The way most of the xml code is setup, you cannot create empty files because it first loads it and fails if there is no valid xml structure, this is kind of a painm, we should be checking for zero length files and forcing a write.

I imagine since this file is being created in root, that dir needs write access, I don't know if this is a wise thing to do.

My dummy XML file always contains a few characters - creating it, saving it then overwriting it still seems to be the best way to go.

My workaround was working, but now... I'm getting a 403 error on one of my sitemap.xml files (but not the others). Looking at the permissions, I see no differences. I even tried recreating the sitemap but I still get a 403 error. I recently upgraded Plesk and am wondering if anyone else has some across this as a Plesk permissions issue (having to do with the psacln user group)? I saw something on this regarding XML files from Wordpress and am wondering if this is a similar issue.

[Connie]

grassfrog, did you test with the new version?

I never ran into that problem, I get working sitemaps