4.5. Troubleshooting Tips

If your API website is not working as expected, make sure your doc folder is not empty and double-check your URL ensuring that you replaced user with your MyID. If all of those things look okay, run the command:

ls -l ~/public_html

to list the contents of your public_html directory (found in your home directory). If you see a red/flashing link, that indicates that the location of the doc directory was not set properly. To fix this:

  1. Remove the broken symbolic link from public_html using the rm command followed by the name of the link. Something like this:

    Important

    In the command below, do not include a / at the end of the relative path. If you use tab completion, it will add it for you so you will need to remove it before removing the link.

    this is not a working command. You must replace link_name with the actual name of the link.
    rm ~/public_html/link_name

  2. After deleting the broken link, run the ln -s command again using the full absolute path (or the shortcut) to your doc directory as the first argument.

  3. Verify that the new symbolic link is not red/flashing by running ls -l ~/public_html again.

  4. Visit the API documentation website in your browser.

  5. If these steps don’t fix the problem, share the following on Piazza and an instructor or TA will help you diagnose the problem:

    1. A screenshot of the output of ls -l ~/public_html.

    2. The command you used to generate the symbolic link (the ln command)

    3. The URL you used in the browser to view the website.