302 redirection and "Show friendly HTTP error messages"

[Stephen Walch]

I have a web app that redirects web users to URLS like
"notes://xxx/yyy/zzz". (A "notes:" protocol handler is installed by the
Lotus Notes client.)

The server sends an HTTP 302 response code to the browser (via ASP.NET
Response.Redirect) and instructs the browser to open a URL such as the one
shown above. This works (the Notes clients opens to the right place) on some
machines but not others and (after much teeth gnashing) I discovered that
the problem occurs only when the "Advanced" option "Show friendly HTTP error
messages" is checked (as it is by default).

I tested the same code redirecting to http:// URLs and it works fine. Why
does the "Show friendly HTTP error messages" feature handle certain
protocols as "errors" and not others?

 

[Rob ^_^]

Hi Stephen,

One is client errors, one is server errors. Since your notes: protocol
handler is not installed on your server the server interprets your url as
being malformed, and so if you have selected "Show friendly errors" it will
post an error back to the client.

With show friendly turned off, all error messages are read from the client
machine (and contain no debug information), probably since the sever error
code returned from the server is not handled by the client, (not in the
range 100-600) it is ignored by the client.

Regards.

 

[Stephen Walch]

When I look at the response using a packet analyzer, it looks like a normal
HTTP 302 response. I believe the problem is totally in the client.
-Steve