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General FAQ

Our General FAQ page is here to answer some of the more common hosting and email queries. As the support area of the website expands, it will include areas dedicated to email, hosting and technical issues. If you have any questions which you feel should be added to this general section, please e-mail support@wisshost.com

If you can't find an answer to your question after reading these FAQ's, please don't hesitate to contact support@wisshost.com. If you are a current customer, please include your website or email details so we can process your query as quickly as possible.

1. POP Server returned an unexpected error – 16999

Q "When I try to download my email using Outlook Express 5.0 on a Macintosh, I get the following error message:

POP Server returned an unexpected error – 16999"

A Outlook Express on a Macintosh doesn’t seem to be able to cope with downloading a large number of emails, or single email that have large attachments. Use the Webmail interface to delete some of the emails and try again.

2. Webmail not available

Q "When I use http://www.domain:8383 to access Webmail, the error message 'The page cannot be displayed' appears. Why?"

A For the majority of domains hosted on our system, the web address for Webmail has changed to http://mail.domain from the old http://www.domain:8383

Further information can be found here if you are unsure whether your website is using the new system.

3. Login attempt failed. Try again . . . 

Q "I want to use Webmail to read my emails but it keeps displaying the message:
Login attempt failed. Try again…"

A Make sure you have typed in your username and password correctly. Your username should include the domain name, for example username@domain

4. Why do I need Webmail?

Q "Why do I need Webmail?"

A With Webmail, also called Web Messaging, you have access to the following functionality from a web browser on any system connected to the Internet.

• Read, reply, send, delete, and print emails
• Maintain your address book and personal information, such as name, organisation, and telephone number
• Set up mail forwarding information, vacation messages, an auto-response message and delivery rules for incoming mail
• Create, modify, and delete mailboxes
• System administrators are also able to:
  • Create
  • modify
  • delete email accounts

5. Error: 550 Access denied

Q "Why does the message 'Error: 550 Access denied' appear when I send email?"

A An incorrect Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) would cause this error. The server that is currently there is not configured to handle your outgoing mail. If you are using a dial-up provided by WiSS Ltd, make sure that the e-mail program has the Outgoing Mail Server set to ‘mail.nthost.co.uk’. 

If using a dial up service by another provider ensure that the SMTP outgoing mail server is set to that of the ISP your are dialing through.

Please note that AOL dial-up customers do not use a SMTP mail server for sending their outgoing mail.

6. The Mail Server responded. Invalid userid/password. Please enter a new password

Q "I’m unable to use Netscape Communicator 4.7 as a POP3 mail client because it keeps on returning the error:
The Mail Server responded. Invalid userid/password. Please enter a new password."

A Some email software, such as Netscape Communicator, do not recognise the ‘@’ character but use the ‘%’ character instead. Change the username from username@domain to username%domain, refer to Netscape Communication Configuration for further details.

7. JMail is not working

Q "My enquiry form, which uses JMail, doesn’t work, why?"

A Check to see that you are using the appropriate version of JMail code. WiSS Ltd recommends that you use JMail version 4 and not version 3 code because the latter sometimes doesn’t work.

Make sure that you are using the correct mail server address and haven’t specified a port, for example mail.nthost.co.uk but not mail.nthost.co.uk:8383.
The following example of JMail version 4.2 code has been copied from the Dimac website (http://tech.dimac.net/isapiscript.dll?action=read&id=
32559&exId=32560)

set msg = Server.CreateObject( "JMail.Message")
msg.Logging = true
msg.silent = true
msg.From = "test@mydomain.com"
msg.FromName = "FromName"
msg.AddRecipient "recipient1@Domain.com", "Name"
msg.AddRecipient "recipient2@Domain.com"
msg.Subject = "Subject"
msg.Body = "First line of message" & _
vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Second line of message"
if not msg.Send("mail.nthost.co.uk" ) then
    Response.write "<pre>" & msg.log & "</pre>"
else
    Response.write "Message sent successfully!"
end if

8. Dial-up telephone numbers

Q "I’ve lost the telephone number for the WiSS dial-up service, what is it?"

A Dial up numbers and other technical information can be found here

9. Unable to access website

Q "Why am I not able to access my website today but yesterday it was working fine?"

A There are many reasons why you would not be able to access your website. The following checklist should help you determine the cause of the problem:

• Is your Internet connection working? Make sure that your are able to access other websites.
• Is your domain being transferred to another Internet Service Provider? Domain name transfers usually take between 24 to 48 hours to complete.
• Is the domain name resolving properly? Check the domain using either VisualWare VisualRoute Server (http://visualroute.visualware.com) or Anonymizer.com (http://anonymiser.com).
• Is the message ‘No website configured’ displayed? If so, the webserver has failed to start your website and you need to contact us to report the problem.

10. Error 678 - The computer you are dialing into is not answering. Try again later

Q "When I try to connect to the Internet using the WiSS dial-up service, the following error message appears: 'Error 678 - The computer you are dialing into is not answering. Try again later'"

A Either your modem or telephone line are not working properly.

Checklist:

• Use the Modem Diagnostics feature to test the modem.
• Use a phone to check the dial-up number is not engaged or unobtainable.
• Ensure telephone and extension cables are not damaged.
• Check your phone line using the automated test service on 17070.
• Contact BT on BT, 151, to adjust the gain on your telephone line.

11. 425 Can’t open data connection using FTP Explorer

Q "The message '425 Can’t open data connection' appears when I use FTP Explorer to upload files to my website? Why?"

A Check your FTP connection and ensure the Passive Mode, usually abbreviated to PASV, is not enabled.

12. I get an error when calling a .shtm file

Q "I use .shtm (server side include) files and now I get an error when I try to navigate to such a page."

A Rename your .shtm or .shtml pages to .asp. 

13. Why can't I use % in file names

Q "I get an error when trying to download a file that uses a % symbol as part of it's file name"

A % is an illegal character in a file name in both DOS (Windows) and UNIX. It is also used in URLs to probe for IIS vulnerabilities which our servers block. The allowable characters are letters a-z , letters A-Z , digits 0-9, period , minus sign & underscore.

14. Date and currency won't display correctly

Q "I have just noticed that where I use the code 'date()' it is showing on theserver as the American format. On my own machine it shows up as 01/10/01 but on the web as 10/1/01. Is there anything that can be done to prevent this.

A There are three solutions to this problem:

1. Explicitly define the format of the data for instance:

myDate = Day(Now()) & "/" & Month(Now()) & "/" & Year(Now())

2. Set the system local in your web page using Session.LCID =xxx where xxx is the locale ID (LCID) of the country who date/currency format you wish to use. For the UK the LCID is 2057.

<%Session.LCID=2057%>
<html>
<body>
...
...

3. set the LCID system wide for your web site by adding an line in your global.asa file. If you don't have a global.asa copy this code and save it to a file called global.asa into the root of your web site.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript" RUNAT="Server">
Sub Session_OnStart
    Session.LCID=2057
End Sub
</SCRIPT>

Download these script samples as a zip file

15. I get 'HTTP/1.1 New Application Failed' what is wrong?

Q When I try to access a page on my web site in my web browser, it says “HTTP/1.1 New Application Failed.” What is wrong?

A The possible causes are a badly configured global.asa file or a database connection isn't being closed properly.

First report the fault to us so we can unload the web site application pool, this is will release resources and allow your site to function again but it doesn't cure the problem. Unless the site is stress tested  over a period of time to simulate a multi-site server you may not be able to replicate this error on your local system.

Check the global.asa file for configuration errors.

If the site uses a database ensure each and every connection is closed properly, under load calls to the database page can result in this error being generated and the site stops working. Ensure that you open and close the database connection as quickly as possible and preferably before rendering any HTML elements. Also, check that page redirects are made after the database has been closed.

VB Example:

Set Conn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Conn.Open myDSN
Set RS = Conn.Execute("Select * from myTable")
...
...
...
Set RS = Nothing
Conn.Close
Set Conn = Nothing

If ..... then
	Response.redirect()
End if

<html>
...