Question

Who makes Movable Type?

Answer

Movable Type is created by Six Apart. The system was originally developed by the husband and wife co-founders of Six Apart, Benjamin Trott and Mena G. Trott.

Benjamin Trott is co-founder and CTO of Six Apart. Ben developed all of the backend code for Movable Type and TypePad, contributes regularly to CPAN (the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network), and has written for Perl.com and contributed to “Essential Blogging”, along with posts to the Six Apart company weblog.

Mena Grabowski Trott is co-founder...

continue reading ...

Question

I downloaded both the Full Package and the Upgrade Package from my account, and they both look the same. Shouldn't they be different?

Answer

Due to improvements in the installation and upgrade process, including renaming the configuration file which ships with the download from mt.cfg to mt-config.cgi-original, we're now able to offer a single distribution package that works regardless of whether you're upgrading from an older version or installing Movable Type for the first time.

This not only simplifies our ability to prepare the...

continue reading ...

Question

I upgraded to the latest version, but my interface and/or weblog still show the older version number.

Answer

If your interface pages still show the older version, this means that all of the newer Movable Type files were not properly uploaded to your server. (At a minimum, the newest lib/MT.pm file is not present.)

Upload the new upgrade files again, ensuring that: • You use the appropriate mode (ASCII or BINARY) • All the older files were overwritten by the newer versions. • No files were truncated during the transfer.

Refresh the interface page in...

continue reading ...

Question

When trying to load the script in my browser, I get an error that says %1 is not a valid Win32 application.

Answer

Your server may only be configured to recognize files with .pl extensions as valid Perl scripts. Try changing the file extension on the script file from .cgi to .pl to see if the script will execute with this change.

If changing the file extension resolves the error, then this could indicate that .cgi is not mapped to the PERL executable; and you'll need to contact your host or server administrator to update the...

continue reading ...

Question

I've just installed Movable Type. How do I integrate my current site design into the system, so that the pages will now be updated with my Movable Type data whenever I publish a new entry?

Answer

Because each person's site is unique, there's not really a "one size fits all" way of integration with Movable Type; it's a process that differs according to your own preferences and needs. Overall, the best way to familiarize yourself with how the system works is to set up a test blog in a separate area of your site, and then make...

continue reading ...

Question

How can I deal with comment spam on my weblog?

Answer

In January of 2005, we released our Guide for Fighting Comment Spam.

The guide covers many of the concepts and tools available to fight comment spam and explains the strengths and weaknesses that we've seen of each. We also included our "best practices" recommendations for not only keeping spam off of your site, but making sure that you and your readers have the best possible experience. The document is intended to be a fairly comprehensive, living document which will change and grow...

continue reading ...

Question

When running the script, I get an error message that says Got an error: Bad ObjectDriver config.

Answer

If no further information follows the error, this means mt-config.cgi1 has not been properly configured for your database; specifically, that you have not uncommented2 any of the database settings so that Movable Type will know which one you want to use.

If the error is followed by more information which includes Connection error, see Connection Errors (MySQL).

If the error is followed by more information which says Your DataSource directory ('/path/to/database/directory') does not exist....

continue reading ...

Question

When rebuilding my site or saving an entry, I get the following error:

Build error in template 'Main Index': Error in <MTSubCategories> tag: <$MTCategoryArchiveLink$> can be used only if you have enabled Category archives.

Answer

You will need to either enable Category Archives on your weblog; or remove the code which is causing the error from your Main Index Template.

Enable Category Archives

Navigate to Settings > Publishing : Archive Mapping1 and check the box next to Category. Click Save Changes and then Rebuild Site...

continue reading ...

Question

My activity log reports these errors when trying to send pings, for example: Ping 'http://www.movabletype.org/update/' failed: HTTP error: 500 Can't connect to www.movabletype.org:80 (Bad protocol 'tcp').

Answer

This error typically indicates network problems on your hosting server. You will need to check with your webhost to see if they are blocking any outgoing traffic.

GoDaddy in particular is one host whose servers do not permit these pings to be sent, so users running Movable Type on GoDaddy will not be able to use this feature.

Some users hosting with...

continue reading ...

Question

How do I add a new weblog in Movable Type?

Answer

Assuming you have the necessary permissions to create weblogs in the system: • Determine the location for your new weblog and create the folder for it on your server, using FTP or a File Manager provided by your host. If your server is not running under cgiwrap or suexec, remember to set the permissions on the new folder to the UNIX equivalent of 777.

Tip: It may not always be necessary for you to create the weblog folder yourself: in version 3.21, Movable Type will try to create the folder...

continue reading ...

Question

My webserver requires that the permissions on my .php files be set to 755, but the files Movable Type generates have permissions set to 666.

Answer

The permissions on files created by Movable Type are determined by the HTMLPerms configuration default, which is 666. You can override this default in mt-config.cgi1: # HTMLPerms 0777

If you uncomment this setting2 in the file, default permissions for all files created by the system will then be set to 777.

Note that the setting for HTMLPerms will be adjusted by the the HTMLUmask setting in...

continue reading ...

Question

When viewing my pages, characters in my language are encoded incorrectly.

Answer

When encoding characters into HTML entities (either for editing, or when you use the encode_html global tag attribute), Movable Type uses the HTML::Entities Perl module, if your server has it; otherwise, it uses a simple encoding that encodes <, >, and & into the proper entities.

In some cases, however, HTML::Entities will not work properly for your characters. This may happen, for example, if your characters are encoded in a different character...

continue reading ...

Question

When I include blockquote tags in my entries, the page formatting is being broken by <p> tags, and renders incorrectly.

Answer

A blockquote can contain paragraph tags, but a paragraph should not contain blockquote tags. Having invalid HTML code results in display issues, so you need to adjust how you are entering your text in the Entry Body field. • The Convert Breaks Formatting option will insert <p> and <br /> tags automatically depending on where you have line breaks in your entry text. When using this option, you...

continue reading ...

Question

The lastn attribute, when used with the MTArchiveList tag, produces an incorrect number of archives. (Version 3.2)

Answer

As an example, if you specify the following: <MTArchiveList archive_type="Monthly" lastn="6">

the tag only returns the last two months, instead of the last six.

The way to get around this until the bug is resolved is to multiple the lastn value you want by three: <MTArchiveList archive_type="Monthly" lastn="18">

and that should actually give you only the last six...

continue reading ...

Question

When anyone tries to sign in to post a comment on my site, they keep getting this message:

The site you're trying to comment on has not signed up for this feature. Please inform the site owner.

Answer

Make sure you have entered the correct URL in your TypeKey profile under Your Weblog Preferences on the Account Preferences page: • Use the domain URL that matches your CGIPath in mt-config.cgi1, rather than the blog URL.

If you have http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/ for CGIPath, then use http://www.example.com/ as the application URL in...

continue reading ...

Question

When using Movable Type, the images don't appear, no styles are being applied, and the Help links don't work.

Answer

If you installed Movable Type into a cgi-bin, certain files (referred to as "static" files), must be situated outside of the cgi-bin in order to be readable by your browser. The rest of this article explains how to make sure Movable Type can find these files.

Which Files Are Static Files?

Version 3.2 and higher

In version 3.2 of Movable Type, all of the required static files are stored by default in a folder...

continue reading ...

Question

How do I install the StyleCatcher Plugin?

Answer

• Download the StyleCatcher plugin1 and unzip the file to your local computer. The files should be organized into two folders within a StyleCatcher folder. For example, after unzipping the file for version 1.0 of the plugin, you would have the following two folders, each with other folders and files inside them:

• StyleCatcher-1.0/mt-static/ • StyleCatcher-1.0/plugins/

• Open your FTP program and log into your server.

• Navigate to your mt-static directory2, and upload3 the contents of the StyleCatcher-1.0/mt-static/...

continue reading ...

Question

When I click the Syndicate this site link on my site, I get a 404 error from my IIS server.

Answer

This must be corrected in the server configuration.

Enabling Extension file .rdf in IIS 6.0 • Go to IIS Management Console. • Right click on "local computer". • Click properties. • Click the "MIME Types" button. • Click "New". • Type ".rdf" into the MIME Type extension textbox. • Type "text/rdf" into the MIME Type extension textbox. • Keep clicking OK until you've exited. • Repeat for any other extensions...

continue reading ...

Question

When clicking View Site from within Movable Type, I get a 403 Forbidden error.

Answer

In most cases, this means that no index file has been generated in your weblog directory yet. Follow the same diagnostics as outlined in 404 on View Site to troubleshoot this error.

If Movable Type is generating an index file correctly in the weblog directory, and you are still seeing this error, then your server may not be configured correctly to display the index file as the default page for that directory.

In other words, if you can browse to the...

continue reading ...

Question

When I use the <MTEntryExcerpt> tag to display the excerpt for my entry, the HTML is removed from the text.

Answer

The behavior of the <MTEntryExcerpt> tag differs depending on whether or not you have entered your own text in the Excerpt field on the Edit Entry screen.

If you do not enter your own excerpt for the entry, Movable Type will automatically generate one for you based on the Entry Body and your specified Excerpt Length setting in Settings > General : Default Weblog Display Settings1. This is the equivalent of...

continue reading ...