download folder doesn't exist - can it be recreated?

Our /home/my_user_name/public_html/mystore/download folder has gone missing. (We are not sure whether it did exist at one time, as this is the first time we have tried to locate it for testing) Our website isn't 'live' yet. We've tried to recreate it manually, but unfortunately, we are still getting an error message on our site saying that it doesn't exist. Does anyone know of a way of recreating without starting again with a fresh install please. We would like to avoid that if at all possible, as we have had loads of development work done by a third party.
Thanks for your help in advance!

suedouglas:

Our /home/my_user_name/public_html/mystore/download folder has gone missing. (We are not sure whether it did exist at one time, as this is the first time we have tried to locate it for testing) Our website isn't 'live' yet. ** We've tried to recreate it manually**, but unfortunately, we are still getting an error message on our site saying that it doesn't exist. Does anyone know of a way of recreating without starting again with a fresh install please. We would like to avoid that if at all possible, as we have had loads of development work done by a third party.
Thanks for your help in advance!

When you say "tried to recreate it manually", did you FTP into your site and tried to create the folder this way?

Look in includes/configure.php for the define DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD - perhaps they put it somewhere else, for example above your web root (which is not a bad strategy).

frank18:

When you say "tried to recreate it manually", did you FTP into your site and tried to create the folder this way?

Thanks for your replay. No, I just created a new folder and named it download.

suedouglas:

Thanks for your replay. No, I just created a new folder and named it download.

Take a look at swguy's suggestion. As for the result of creating the download directory as identified above, when you say it doesn't work does that mean if you refresh the screen the download directory just "created" doesn't actually exist (permissions issue more likely) or is it that Zc doesn't "recognize" that it exists (more likely swguy's suggestion). It may also have to do with the pub directory and settings in the admin->configuration->attributes, but one step at a time.

swguy:

Look in includes/configure.php for the define DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD - perhaps they put it somewhere else, for example above your web root (which is not a bad strategy).

Thanks for your reply. I already checked that, and it's pointing to the place where it usually is, but the folder didn't actually exist. There was something odd about the configure.php file though, and that was that some paths in there (although not the download one) were pointing to /home instead of /home2 (our home is called /home2) The download file was pointing to /home2/my_user_name/public_html/mystore/download which is correct.

Please see my reply to swguy. The download folder I created did exist in that I was able to put a file in there OK? The permissions were OK (I checked at the time on the download folder, although I can't remember what I set it to (644 rings a bell though!) I didn't check any other folder permissions). I've since restored to an earlier backup and the download folder doesn't exist in there either, but there is one thing that's changed and that is that the error message on the website is now expecting the download folder to be in /home/.... (before it was /home2/....) Our /home since the restore now seems to have changed to /home4, I have just checked the configure.php (after the restore) and that is still pointing to both /home/ paths and /home2/ paths as it was before. Now our home is /home4/ should all paths in the configure.php files be pointing there? Any help would be appreciated!

You said you're not "live"... Setup on a publicly accessible server? Or on a local computer all installed by "you"?

I ask because some hosts provide a path to which all such paths should be pointed, but once that is accessed, the computer points to yet a different location (sort of like a redirect)... This may be the case for you. To what path does your cPanel indicate for ftp/php related interaction? It may not even include a home#... Further it may be that it expects the path to simply begin with /home/ and the rest is figured out. Certainly having a variety of paths in the includes/configure.php file is going to cause trouble if they are all supposed to address one location.

mc12345678:

You said you're not "live"... Setup on a publicly accessible server? Or on a local computer all installed by "you"?

I ask because some hosts provide a path to which all such paths should be pointed, but once that is accessed, the computer points to yet a different location (sort of like a redirect)... This may be the case for you. To what path does your cPanel indicate for ftp/php related interaction? It may not even include a home#... Further it may be that it expects the path to simply begin with /home/ and the rest is figured out. Certainly having a variety of paths in the includes/configure.php file is going to cause trouble if they are all supposed to address one location.

Thanks for your help we are with Hostgator and they have said that it doesn't matter that we have some references to /home/ and some to /home2/ in our config files even though our php files are now in /home4/ I'm going to try recreating the download file again and I'll pay close attention to the permissions on the download file just in case it was a permissions problem previously. Thanks for your help! In your opinion though, should I be able to create the download file?

In your opinion though, should I be able to create the download file?

Yes. Create a directory called "download" at the same level as your "public_html" directory. Put your files in there. Update the references to the download folder in the configure.php files. Done.