Troubleshooting Files Not Found

Error 404: File Not Found is usually easier to fix than a permission error, but first you need to figure out why the file is missing. Some possibilities

The file was uploaded to the wrong place

To avoid file placement problems, practice good site maintenance

The file name is wrong or uses special characters

UNIX file names are case-sensitive. If you named your file Index.html, you'll get a 404 Error. For this reason, it is standard to name all files in lowercase characters

In addition, Unix doesn't allow spaces. Some programs will use an "escape character" for a blank space; it looks like this: %20 . If %20 is in your URL, you'll get unreliable results. If you want to indicate a space, the convention is to use an underscore_character, as in public_html.

Other characters to avoid in naming UNIX files include < > ~ ` and any other punctuation (, ? !)

To rename file, you can use SSH:

Or you can rename the file from an SSH or telnet terminal:

If the files are still not accessible, make sure your permissions are OK, and that your local and remote folders are in sync.


Dean Taciuch
GMU English Department

Valid XHTML 1.0Valid CSS!

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.