"Could not write main topics file" error message

A "Could not write main topics file" occurs when your web server cannot correctly write to the Discus topics page (board-topics.html) which is contained within the "messages" directory on your site. This problem in itself is trivial to solve but is discussed in some detail here, as it is the symptom of a more significant problem on your site.

Generally, this message occurs on Windows servers, although it can also occur (be it much less frequently) on unix servers.

This generally occurs only when you have done an FTP setup. You must read through the "readme.html" file and make sure you have set the required permissions. Specifically you must set the "board-topics.html" file in your "messages" directory to permissions 0777 (rwxrwxrwx). The "messages" directory itself should also have permissions of 0777 (rwxrwxrwx) set in order to work properly.

If you have FTP access only to your Windows server, there is no way that you can remotely set permissions on your files. This is due to how Windows is set up. Permissions on files can only be changed from the console, which means that you will need to e-mail your web host's support staff and have them set the permissions for you. Here is a sample e-mail message (make sure you customize it by filling in the necessary information in the green spaces. You can get this information from your discus.conf file.

Dear Support Staff:

To complete the installation of the Discus discussion board software package
on my site, I need you to set permissions on the following directories
and recursively to all files therein:

* {Your Administration Directory}
* {Your Discus HTML Directory}/messages

The permissions should be set such that the WWW server has both "READ"
and "WRITE" permissions to those directories and all files and
subdirectories thereof. Please inform me when the requested changes
have been made.

Sincerely,
{Your Name}

If you run the server yourself, you can set these permissions through the Windows Explorer program. Navigate to your administration directory and set permissions for full access for everyone. This should be applied recursively to all subdirectories. Then do the same for the "messages" subdirectory in your Discus HTML directory.