WebDAV: I can connect, but not check files out

[Hans Friedrich]

Hello,

I have a WebDAV server running on Apache 2 and setup for a site in Contribute
CS4. I can use this server with other WebDAV clients, including my OS X ftp
program (Transmit) which has WebDAV support built in, as well as the OS X
native WebDAV support through Connect to Server. Editing and creating files
works great in other clients.

However, in Contribute CS4 although Connection Test works fine, and I can
connect to the WebDAV site and retrieve a file list. When I try to edit a file,
though, Contribute shows the "Creating a draft of this page..." dialog, and
sits on "Waiting for server..." for about a minute before failing. Trying to
administer the site also fails.

Checking my apache access log, I see:

76.105.243.63 - hans [18/Dec/2008:23:03:35 -0700] "PROPFIND /webdav/index.html
HTTP/1.1" 207 269 "-" "Contribute/3.0"
76.105.243.63 - hans [18/Dec/2008:23:03:35 -0700] "PROPFIND
/webdav/index.html/ HTTP/1.1" 400 226 "-" "Contribute/3.0"

The error log shows:

[Thu Dec 18 23:03:35 2008] [error] [client 76.105.243.63] Could not fetch
resource information. [400, #0]
[Thu Dec 18 23:03:35 2008] [error] [client 76.105.243.63] (2)No such file or
directory: The URL contains extraneous path components. The resource could not
be identified. [400, #0]

Anyone have any ideas why it is trying to do a PROPFIND on /webdav/index.html/
? Any other tips for getting WebDAV working with Contribute CS4?

[Hans Friedrich]

Interestingly, the errors above seem to be a little bit of a red herring. If I
turn off "enable file check in and check out" in Dreamweaver then files can be
downloaded, edited and uploaded perfectly. I can also create new files. As soon
as I turn checkouts back on, it stops working. The errors above show up in the
Apache server log even when this box is unchecked and yet everything works
correctly. Because Contribute offers no option for editing without writing
extra info files to the server it still won't work.

The Dreamweaver log shows the following when I attempt to check out a file:

Started: 12/19/08 6:25 PM

Operation timed out. Cancelling...
Operation timed out. Cancelling...
/webdav/robots.txt - error occurred - An HTTP error occurred - cannot get
robots.txt. Dreamweaver could not connect because the server is down or not
accepting connections.

File activity incomplete. 1 file(s) or folder(s) were not completed.

Files with errors: 1
/webdav/robots.txt

Finished: 12/19/08 6:27 PM

As I mentioned, when I turn off checkouts this whole process works correctly,
and I can edit and create new files.

[Dominic Michael]

Hi,
Seems like you have some permission problem in the server side, which is not allowing any application to create a .LCK file, whether it is Dreamweaver or Contribute.
Thanks.