More AWSTATS problems! VERY FRUSTRATED!

[vikenk]

Hello everyone,

My customized AWSTATS used to work seamlessly for me up until this past summer, when BlueHost made changes to the administration of awstats. For those that remember, any customizations to the AWSTATS config file had to be put into a CUSTOM.TXT file. My main customizations were to add manual updates from the browser and to make different "top 25" lists.

So, my new CUSTOM.TXT file was working great for almost three months, until about three weeks ago, when all my customizations stopped working AGAIN! When I called BlueHost again, they told me to ditch the custom.txt file and edit the main config file and change permissions to 444 to prevent overwriting (this is how I originally had it configured over three years ago).

Now, the stats completely STOP compiling unless I manually update it from the browser. On days that I don't manually update, I get ZERO stats. For instance, if I don't check my stats for five days, all those five days show ZERO hits and ZERO stats. Only days that I manually update the stats show any hits.

THIS IS TOTALLY FRUSTRATING!!!!!

Has anyone else's custom.txt file stopped working as well? Are you running into similar issues? Is there another new way to configure awstats?

After four years, I'm about ready to give up on Blue Host and go with someone who has their awstats working right!

[Early Out]

Best solution - stop relying on awstats and use Google Analytics, instead.

However, as far as I know, the custom.txt approach should still work (as described in this post) - I can't imagine why you were told to ditch it and go back to the config file method instead. My own custom.txt is still behaving just fine.

In any case, leaving BH because of this amounts to cutting off your nose to spite your face, however.

[bluejerry]

Hello VikenK,

I noticed that Awstats is giving a hell load of troubles to you (there was another post about Awstats by you earlier during August), perhaps you should seriously thinking about a Google Analytics switch. Awstats in my experience, after all, is inaccurate at all (especially on bot's crawls).

[vikenk]

What's worse is that when I called BH for help, the support guy had never even heard about the custom.txt file. He even transferred me to a level 2 scripting specialist and HE hadn't heard about custom.txt either!!! What's up with that?

Can you tell me more about Google Analytics? I looked into it but Google is not specific to the types of stats they show. What awstats gives me that I like is:

1. Which browser is being used
2. User's screen resolutions
3. Users Operating system
4. "Add to favorites" percentage
5. Usage of Javascript/Java/Flash/PDF/Quicktime

Does Google Analytics give me that as well?

Thanks for your reply. I was hoping to know that others were having problems with custom.txt as well. Now I'm more puzzled than ever about why it's not working. BH doesn't seem to know a thing about this issue or their administration of it. If they don't know how it's supposed to work, how am I supposed to know?

[Early Out]

Re: what Google Analytics provides:

1. Which browser is being used

Yes, down to specific versions.

2. User's screen resolutions

Yes, in great detail.

3. Users Operating system

Yes, in great detail.

4. "Add to favorites" percentage

I haven't found this, so it might not be there. However, the numbers from awstats have always looked wildly inflated to me, so I'm not sure how reliable the numbers are, anyway.

5. Usage of Javascript/Java/Flash/PDF/Quicktime

Yes and no - you can get stats on Java and Flash support (including Flash version), but not the others (again, they may be there, but I haven't found them yet). When it comes to Javascript and PDF, those I wouldn't worry about. Anyone who has Javascript turned off, or who refuses to install the Adobe Reader, is a visitor you shouldn't bother trying to accommodate - they've made a conscious decision to cut themselves off from vast amounts of web content, so it's their problem, not yours!

GA also provides a bunch of stuff that's not in awstats, like bounce rate (visitors who leave without ever getting beyond the front page), visitor loyalty and recency (are people coming back, and how often), depth of visit (how many pages are people typically viewing), connection speeds, and so on.

[Early Out]

Just dawned on me - Google Analytics relies on Javascript to gather its stats, so if a user has JS turned off, nothing gets reported to GA. Sort of Catch-22!

[felgall]

And about 6% of your visitors will be running a browser that has JavaScript disabled or not available at all - with most of the people who are likely to complain if your site doesn't work being in that group.

[addylo]

I've had this same problem with awstats and I've never used the CUSTOM.TXT file. Two days this month I've had zero hits logged for the day. There was also one day in Sept and one in Aug. I never experienced the problem before that.

[addylo]

This post kinda got diverted by a Google Analytics discussion.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why Awstats stopped logging if not checked daily? Should a trouble ticket be opened on this?

[Early Out]

Check the Control Panel, Choose Log Programs, just to make sure it's still enabled. If it is, but it's not logging stats, then yes, opening a trouble ticket is the only reasonable course.