Runtime Error on Main Page

[pakman945]

Hi Doom9,

First just want to say thanks for all the work you put into the site. It is an invaluable source of knowledge! Since 4/10 I have been getting runtime error on your main page. It says its on line 16 and that access is denied. I am runnigng IE 6.0 on W2K. Is this just an issue on my machine? I hope that this hasnt been addressed already and I apologize if it has.

Regards,

Brian

[Doom9]

on which of the 7 servers?

I use IE6, too and it works just fine

[pakman945]

Hi,

How do I know which server I am accessing when I pull up your page? Refreshing the page several times results in the same error each time.

Regards,

Brian

[Doom9]

you click on contact in the top frame.. there you'll find the instructions for submittiong an error report.. that's what you gotta do.

[pakman945]

Hi,

It says I am accessing IP: 213.114.110.81. If you would rather me to sumbit an email to error@doom9.net, I will be happy to do so.

Regards,

Brian

[Doom9]

I'm happy (or annoyed because I wasted my time) to announce that the problem lies on your end.. I have no problem with that server.

generally.. always look for the error on your end first.. I'm not exactly running a hobby operation when it comes to server maintenance.. all admins have ample experience with their respective hard and software.

[pakman945]

I apologize that I wasted your time. I have great respect for what you are doing here. If I insulted your experience or admins I am truly sorry. Have a nice day.

Regards,

Brian

[Doom9]

well.. no need to apologize and it's only time wasted.. I don't feel insulted or anything. but next time please triple-check before reporting.. I hardly get a valid report these days, especially since I'm doing the synching using fully automatic and reliable tools (lftp rules) to keep my site up-to-date. If a file is not there on a server it means that for some reason the synching has failed.. that happened 2 days ago when one server ran out of space (and lftp didn't report it.. maybe I should talk to the developer about giving a bit more useful error messages.. when I manually ftp'd my ftp client told me it couldn't write because there was no space left on the device)... or as last night one server had some routing problems.. but I have a failsave mechanism in place for that.. as long as you use www.doom9.org.. these urls in the round robin lists are checked every 5 minutes and not working servers are automatically removed from the list.. this is pretty much as good as it gets.. you can't poll servers every second.

you know.. I do take almost any report seriously even if it doesn't contain enough info but I hope you can understand my position.. we have pretty sophisticated mechanisms in place to make sure everything works as it's supposed to be but if you have to check multiple servers every time somebody reports something.. and in 95% it's just a waste of your time it starts to bug you..

[pakman945]

Hi,

Sorry to post here again, but I found that I only recieve the error when I visit "www.doom9.net" not when I go to "www.doom9.org" And if I ping the .net, it times out. But still, the problem is probably on my end. I completely understand what you are saying about reporting errors. And I thank you for looking into my false bug. If I encounter anything else odd, I will be much more careful about reporting it.

Regards,

Brian

[Doom9]

well.. I suddenly get a javascript error and the counter doesn't show anymore (using IE6) but no runtime errors (all using doom9.net).. maybe namezero changed something in their redirect system.

I suggest that everybody uses www.doom9.org, not only for now, but doom9.org actually has a paid dns hosting that has proven to be extremely stable and offers advanced features like round robin and failsave switchover whereas doom9.net is just a web redirect and tends to be down a lot more often (In 1.5 years of service the dns server had a hickup just once and it affected only a limited geographical area). I certainly look into it.. I have an idea.. we'll see if it works out.

[Doom9]

well.. it seems to be working again now.. even though the javascript tags are incorrect and don't match what sitemeter tells you to use.. I should add the 2nd variable not as script argument (and even that's improperly done making NS4 choke) but as vrariable in the first script line. But.. correct code makes namezero (doom9.net) not work (and thus lowering the hitrate by roughly 1/3) whereas using the old improper code makes NT4 not work (the other browsers work though) and doom9.net works.. so I'll just go for the latter.

[pakman945]

Hmm, I am not exactly sure what you did. :) But I dont get the error anymore. You truly run a superb site! Thanks again!

Regards,

Brian

[Doom9]

I can give you the details:

Ever since I switched the sitemeter I've had the following 2 lines in my left.html file:
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">var site="s12doom9"</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://s12.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=s12doom9;var g_frames=true;">
on 4/10 I changed this to <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">var site="s12doom9";var g_frames=true;</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://s12.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=s12doom9">

the latter is correct javascript code, the former isn't as server parameters need to be given with ?parameter=value in the 2nd line. I misinterpreted sitemeter's instructions to add the special g_frames tag when I first set it up. Netscape4 is not able to handle the improper javascript tags and shows an illegal parameter error upon loading the counter.. all other browsers seem to work just fine despite that. But since I changed it to the correct version doom9.net no longer worked properly (must have something to do with namezero packing my site into another frame that originates on another url) and the counter has not tracked around 50k hits ever since :( So I went back to the old code which works for all but NS4 and counts all the hits.

@update.. I've just had a look at the sitemeter stats and the numbers are back to normal levels now :) I guess I won't be conducting any more experiments with the sitemeter code