Re: IE 5.5 / 6.0 If-None-Match errors - Question

On Fri, 15 Feb 2002, Jeff Moss wrote:

> I should have posted something here earlier, but we are still actually
> fighting with the problem.
>
> Several things seem to be happening. Problems get reported by users of IE
> 6.0 for XP, but no problems for W2K users of IE. On the Mac Classic
> platform IE 5 and 5.1 have shown the problems.
>
> At first we thought it was the meta tags,  then we thought it was java and
> javascript. We have now eliminated those as the problem, and I don't
> believe the automated site building tool is the problem either. We believe
> it has something to do with the CSS cascading Style Sheets and they way
> they interact with the caching mechanism on the IE browser.
>
> For example, we make a change on a page, and a mac user reloads that page,
> getting it to mostly come up, but all the graphics show as bad links. Or
> the original problems persists for the Mac user, but it would be fixed for
> the XP IE user. It turns out that you have to clear your IE Global History
> cache, as well as all others, and the problem seems to go away.
>
> So, Currently, we have pulled off all java and javascript (And I think CSS,
> I'll have to ask the designer) and had anyone who complained clear their
> histories, and all seems to be working now. We will start adding in
> javascript again shortly after we are sure no one else is experiencing a
> problem.
>
> Sorry I couldn't give everyone the definitive answer, but that is where
> things sit at the moment.
>
> Jeff
>
> At 01:26 PM 2/15/2002 -0500, Martin Randall wrote:
> >Hello clemensF
> >
> >On 04-Feb-02, you wrote:
> >
> > >> Jeff Moss:
> > >
> > >> OK, I've found the answer I believe.. It had to do with a mangled meta
> > >> tag generated by an automated tool. Once the headers were sorted out
> > >> everything was OK.
> > >
> > > that's nice.  most people check their problems with us, but rarely their
> > > solutions.  please keep us posted.
> > >
> > > clemens fischer
> > >
> >
> >
> >To true.
> >
> >Why don't you provide more information to enlighten us to such problems e.g.
> >
> >1)   What was the mangles meta tag, what should the tag have been
> >
> >2)   What automated tool including version
> >
> >Regards...Martin
> >Regards...Martin
> >--
> >---
> >Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a person of some sense to know
> >how to lie well.
> >
> >  -- Samuel Butler (1835-1902), "Notebooks" 1912
>
>
I don't know if it applies or not, but I found that publicfile delivered
.css files as text files, so IE 5.x for Windows (at least) was not loading
my style sheets at all.

To immediately get around this problem, I removed the type .css
designation from the header for that file.  Without any type= line, IE
would then "recognize" that the file was a .css and all was well.

If you look at the default filetypes listed on the publicfile web page,
you'll see that there are only a handful of file types that publicfile
knows how to serve.  Given what people seem to be using publicfile for,
I'm sure that these handful are enough, and it may be a trivial
programming feat to extend the list.

I'm not a programmer, though, so I was forced to switch to another
webserver. (wn, in case anyone wants to ask.  It can be run under
supervise, and it can be made to log out to syslog, so if you are using
socklog, wn then logs out to multilog.)


Jeff Ross
Open Vistas Networking, Inc.
http://www.openvistas.net