lynx-dev HP Forum: Bad HTTP Redirect

[David Woolley]

To the HP Webmaster:

After fighting through many anonymous links and anonymous usemaps containing
anonymous links (I think alt is mandatory in HTML 4!), I finally tried to
register, for the community forum for DeskJet 670Cs.  The duplicate name
page came back OK, but on a successful(?) submission I got back what I
assume was a broken 303 redirect to a non-absolute URL.  I suspect you
are relying on the particular error recovery in certain browsers to
assume that a redirect to /xxx means http:<site-we-submitted-to>/xxxx.

(Note that most web servers will do the redirect internally for static pages;
I suspect that it was the fact that this was a CGI page with parameters that
caused the broken URL to be transmitted.  You are not using one of the
traditional servers, though.)

(For Lynx list.  If there isn't already error handling for this in 2.8, it
might be worth validating a redirect a bit more, and even condescending
to use the same error recovery as the big two.)

=============================================================================

                     You have reached the Information Page
                                       
Lynx Version 2.7.2

File that you are currently viewing

   Linkname: HP DeskJet User Community Forum - Register
        URL:
          http://hpcc887.external.hp.com:5050/cgi-bin/escforum/show?PIPSE
          RV=0&ROOT=16758&MSG=16758&T=registeruser
    Charset: iso-8859-1 (assumed)
     Server: Open-Market-Secure-WebServer/2.0.5.RC0
       Date: Sunday, 12-Jul-98 09:33:54 GMT
   Owner(s): None
       size: 27 lines
       mode: forms mode
          
Link that you currently have selected

   Linkname: Register, agree to the posting guidlines and enter the
          forums
     Method: POST
    Enctype: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
     Action: http://hpcc887.external.hp.com:5050/cgi-bin/escforum/usermgr

=============================================================================

ERROR: The requested URL could not be retrieved
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   While trying to retrieve the URL:
   [1]http:/cgi-bin/escforum/show?X=Eim_jwRsqpCpo.VQ0ZUIeZFFBqYidZ07RAPCR
   rjhdgLMej3_1tRpz
   
   The following error was encountered:
     * ERROR 110 -- The syntax for the URL you entered is not valid.
       
   This means that:
    You made a typing error or the URL you entered might not follow the [2]rule
s for the syntax of URLs.
Please reenter the URL in the correct form.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   
    [3]Network Appliance Web-Caching powered by Network Appliance.
    Generated by NetCache/NetApp Release 3.2.1: Thu May 21 16:33:01 PDT
    address@hidden:8080 Sun, 05 Jul 1998 15:37:39 GMT

References

   1. 
http:/cgi-bin/escforum/show?X=Eim_jwRsqpCpo.VQ0ZUIeZFFBqYidZ07RAPCRrjhdgLMej3_1tRpz
   2. http://cache-06:8080/disk_objects/html/help/urlsyntax.html
   3. http://www.netapp.com/

=============================================================================

                     You have reached the Information Page
                                       
Lynx Version 2.7.2

File that you are currently viewing

   Linkname: ERROR: The requested URL could not be retrieved
        URL:
          http:/cgi-bin/escforum/show?X=Eim_jwRsqpCpo.VQ0ZUIeZFFBqYidZ07R
          APCRrjhdgLMej3_1tRpz
    Charset: iso-8859-1 (assumed)
       Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 09:42:29 GMT
   Last Mod: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 09:42:29 GMT
   Owner(s): None
       size: 20 lines
       mode: normal
          
Link that you currently have selected

   Linkname:
          http:/cgi-bin/escforum/show?X=Eim_jwRsqpCpo.VQ0ZUIeZFFBqYidZ07R
          APCR
        URL:
          http:/cgi-bin/escforum/show?X=Eim_jwRsqpCpo.VQ0ZUIeZFFBqYidZ07R
          APCRrjhdgLMej3_1tRpz