All of the sudden, when I publish a blog post with pictures in it, Live Writer is unable to transfer the pictures to my server via FTP. When I try to do so, I get the following error. I have a screen cap below, but Live Writer replaced the picture with the word “ftperror,” which is the name of the picture I am trying unsuccessfully to post.
I had to upload this picture to Photobucket
and then link to it. What a pain in the ass.
I can tell by looking on my server that Live Writer is creating a directory on my server the way it is supposed to, and there is an appropriately named file in the directory, but the size of the file is 0 bytes. I used a jpeg for the screen cap below to confirm that it’s not a png problem. It’s not, as Live Writer replaced that screen cap with its name too.
Here lies the symptom, but what is the problem?
Sometimes the 0 Filesize is a permissions problem, so I tried changing the permissions in the target folder on my server. No dice. So I restored the permissions to their previous levels.
For some reason, I’m starting to think this may have something to do with the way Live Writer names the image files.
I was able to upload the files via FileZilla, my FTP application, without a problem. This indicates that the problem resides within Live Writer. I tried to test that theory by uploading some pictures to my Photobucket account via Live Writer. No dice. Same error message, but I couldn’t get any FTP client to display the proper directory on Photobucket- the connection times out when trying to retrieve the directory listing. So I don’t know for sure.
Here’s my test picture, so I can keep trying until I figure out how to fix this nightmare. Anyone who reads this blog knows that I think Live Writer is the most useful and feature perfect application out there. I have become very reliant on it, so I need to fix this problem.
If you can see this image,
I have fixed the problem.
The mysterious thing is that I didn’t change any settings prior to the problem arising. On the one hand, it’s strange that Live Writer can post blog posts, but not pictures. But my blog posts are published to my server via Blogger, whereas the pictures are set up to post directly to my server via FTP. I deleted all the FTP information in the Live Writer blog account settings a couple of times and reentered it. Live Writer was able to access the directories on my server at that point. Somehow, when it tries to transfer the picture file, something goes wrong.
This makes the formerly simple process of publishing a blog post very difficult. It requires me to separately upload the pictures and then link to them. It was much easier to upload the pictures at the same time I publish the blog post. Little pain in the ass problems like this that suddenly spring up for no apparent reason drive me crazy.
But my devotion to Live Writer requires that I continue looking for a solution. Time for a Twitter SOS.
