Re: [Zope] [ANSWER] 500 error with IE on login
Re. returning a 500 status on an authentication error, which makes the login screen invisible to MSIE users on windows:
On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 12:41:56PM -0400, SOMEBODY wrote:
I strongly oppose modifying a properly functionng, RFC-conforming product to coddle a non-informative and non-RFC-conforming product. Fix the broken product, not the working one.
(Please note that the quote above was a followup to my message and it was not what I said! ) If I was making a tool/product only for myself, my team or something like that I would fully concur. This is not the case for most zope users. a) If zope is used to support a publically-acessible site it absolutely must work in a manner that makes it convenient and acceptable for MSIE/Windows users: I take it that's not debatable. Since I never user MSIE/Win myself I had a hell of a time figuring out the 500-error bug (blaming it on networking issues and such). This is not a good state of affairs. While i don't like it, MSIE/Win is a de facto standard. (I know this is flame bait... you know what I mean, I feel sick for saying it, so please let's not get into it.) The hard-nosed "don't fix a conforming product line" if taken too strongly it the kind of attitude that could really be bad for zope acceptance. b) It seems that semantically a "server error" (500) code isn't even the right code for this particular problem, so the fix is fine there (although I have not checked the RFC). c) The worse issue is what to do with the other unexpected cases where zope might generate a 500 error as it's a default exception code. On my zope, I want the user to see the message page, if any. Inserting code to detected the browser/system and only change a 500 to a 200 code for MSIE/Win users alone seems fine but I'm not gonna bother doing this myself right now, in particular 'cause I don't know how robust it would be. d) As an aside, does any other browser ever really care about these codes? Greg Dudek http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~dudek
Hi- On Wednesday, May 8, 2002, at 08:51 AM, Gregory Dudek wrote:
Re. returning a 500 status on an authentication error, which makes the login screen invisible to MSIE users on windows:
On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 12:41:56PM -0400, SOMEBODY wrote:
I strongly oppose modifying a properly functionng, RFC-conforming product to coddle a non-informative and non-RFC-conforming product. Fix the broken product, not the working one.
(Please note that the quote above was a followup to my message and it was not what I said! ) If I was making a tool/product only for myself, my team or something like that I would fully concur. This is not the case for most zope users.
a) If zope is used to support a publically-acessible site it absolutely must work in a manner that makes it convenient and acceptable for MSIE/Windows users: I take it that's not debatable. Since I never user MSIE/Win myself I had a hell of a time figuring out the 500-error bug (blaming it on networking issues and such). This is not a good state of affairs. While i don't like it, MSIE/Win is a de facto standard. (I know this is flame bait... you know what I mean, I feel sick for saying it, so please let's not get into it.) The hard-nosed "don't fix a conforming product line" if taken too strongly it the kind of attitude that could really be bad for zope acceptance.
I should have jumped in earlier, but anyway, there's a simple solution to this. IE looks at the size of the html page, and if it is below a certain size, it will show its "helpful" page. So, we could just add an html comment or something like this: <!-- This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. This is stupid stuff to make IE happy. I hate Microsoft. --> I think that the page has to be at least 5K, but don't quote me on that.
b) It seems that semantically a "server error" (500) code isn't even the right code for this particular problem, so the fix is fine there (although I have not checked the RFC).
I have no idea, although neither 500 nor 200 sounds quite right.
c) The worse issue is what to do with the other unexpected cases where zope might generate a 500 error as it's a default exception code. On my zope, I want the user to see the message page, if any. Inserting code to detected the browser/system and only change a 500 to a 200 code for MSIE/Win users alone seems fine but I'm not gonna bother doing this myself right now, in particular 'cause I don't know how robust it would be.
See above.
d) As an aside, does any other browser ever really care about these codes?
YES. iCab on MacOS, most Gecko derivatives (but not Mozilla), and just about every webcrawler. --Quentin
Greg Dudek http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~dudek
participants (2)
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Gregory Dudek -
Quentin Smith