[Zope] 500 error from windows only!

[Oliver Bleutgen]

Gregory Dudek wrote:
>   Synopsis: only windows users are getting a 500 error when they
> should get a login screen!
> 
>   I'm running a zope site and using the (deprecated but easy)
> Generic User Folder for cookie mode login (although that product
> may not be the issue).
> 
>   Many (all?) users from explorer on windows currently get a 
> 500 Server Error when they get to a page that needs authentication.
>   Users from any "normal" OS like linux or MacOS (9 or X) using
> either netscape, explorer or mozilla get a nice normal login
> screen.
> 
>   How is it possible the only windows users are getting the 500 error
> screen and might anybody have a hint re. how to fix this?  There is 
> nothing interesting in the logs.
> 
>   If you want to see this for yourself, it's visible at:
>      http://www.mudcritters.com
> (it's a not-for profit kids gaming site that's suppoed to sneak
> them educational material.)
> 
>   Thanks, Greg


Hi Greg,

just checked with tcpwatch (-> 
http://hathaway.freezope.org/Software/TCPWatch , nice tool)
because of the braindead IE built in error pages.

Ok, to your problem.
At first, you don't get the 500 "internal server error" only in IE, you 
get it with every browser!
What IE does is apruptly closing the connection after something less 
than around 1500 bytes or so (I assume it's one TCP packet, so YMMV 
depending on your MTU).
Mozilla just receives the data and renders the result, i.e. your login page.
What browser does the right thing now - I don't know - but I expect IE 
to be wrong, because the client should IIRC display the stuff the server 
sends.
But IE doesn't do that anyway - which badly sucks, anybody an idea how 
to turn that off?
OTOH moz doesn't indicate the error, also not ideal IMO.

How to fix:
I assume the right way might be that your user folder shouldn't return 
an internal server error when just redirecting to the login page, but I 
don't know if this is easily fixable. But sending an 500 response seems 
wrong to me.

cheers,
oliver