Problems with people accessing my website

[Ed_R]

I have a website that I've created that requires a user to log in via
an asp page and many asp pages used throughout site. The site is
accessed by close to 100 users. For the most part everything works
fine, however there are a couple of users who often have trouble
"logging on" I put that in quotes becaue these people tend to be the
computer challenged type so not really certain based on the feedback
that I'm getting from them as to exactly what they are doing or where
they are getting to or coming from.

What it sounds like is happening is when they click on the link to go
to log in page they get the: "the page requested cannot be
displayed" error. Two poeple that seem to have the most trouble are
both accessing via an AOL account. I'm wondering if there's a setting
in AOL that disables scripts or asp pages or something else? Any idea
what can casue problems displaying asp pages via an aol account??

 

[Bob Lehmann]

Any idea what can casue problems displaying asp pages via an aol account??

No.

But while you're here...
Some people have a problem opening my front door, even though most (98%+)
have no trouble at all. Any idea what can cause problems for these people?

In other words, you have not provided enough information....
How do your users log in, for starters.

Bob Lehmann

 

[Ed Richter]

Well, I was hoping that maybe there would be a simple answer like there's a
security setting/switch in AOL that prevents scripts and/or asp pages from
being run.

The people come to the home page of the site, click on a link to go to a
page to log on. Actually the link takes them to one page, which then
re-directs them to asp log in page. But they never get there. Instead
after a delay, they get: "the page requested cannot be displayed" error.
The asp log in page contains a simple two field form, user name and password
and a submit button. But they never get this far to eve nse the form. It
doesn't appear to load the asp page.

Just as to answer your other problem, the 2% are all midgits, therefore
can't reach the handle so can be grouped together into the midgit group, so
there is a common thread to your problem here too. In my case the common
thread appears to be AOL. Was hoping that was enough. Maybe not!

 

[p c]

You will need to get more information from the users to troublehoot
this. it may be on your end or their end.

For starters, ask them to tunr off the "friendly error" message of IE.
If you have acces to their computer, *sometimes" looking at the HTML
(view sourrce) of the error page you may find more info about the error.
This sometimes hppens with ASP pages with errors.

Do these folks have any browser or other scuirty settings that prevnts
redirects?

...PC

 

[Ed_R]

Well thats the problem. These are the computer challenged types, so
trying to get any kind of meaningful info from them is difficult. I
don't have any physical access to their machines so doing all of this
debug via emails back and forth. I've asked him three times what
browser he's using and he never responded, probably cause he doesn't
know what that means. At least I did get out of him that he's using a
PC not a Mac and running Windows XP.

I'm guessing that if they're using AOL, they are using the default AOL
supplied browser

Is there a security setting to turn off redirects?

 

[Stefan B Rusynko]

Is the first redirect an ASP redirect or an html redirect?
Are you using server side headers?
Are you using client side cookies?
See http://webmaster.info.aol.com/caching.html



| Well, I was hoping that maybe there would be a simple answer like there's a
| security setting/switch in AOL that prevents scripts and/or asp pages from
| being run.
|
| The people come to the home page of the site, click on a link to go to a
| page to log on. Actually the link takes them to one page, which then
| re-directs them to asp log in page. But they never get there. Instead
| after a delay, they get: "the page requested cannot be displayed" error.
| The asp log in page contains a simple two field form, user name and password
| and a submit button. But they never get this far to eve nse the form. It
| doesn't appear to load the asp page.
|
| Just as to answer your other problem, the 2% are all midgits, therefore
| can't reach the handle so can be grouped together into the midgit group, so
| there is a common thread to your problem here too. In my case the common
| thread appears to be AOL. Was hoping that was enough. Maybe not!
|
|
| | >>>Any idea what can casue problems displaying asp pages via an aol
| >>>account??
| >
| > No.
| >
| > But while you're here...
| > Some people have a problem opening my front door, even though most (98%+)
| > have no trouble at all. Any idea what can cause problems for these people?
| >
| > In other words, you have not provided enough information....
| > How do your users log in, for starters.
| >
| > Bob Lehmann
| >
| > | >> I have a website that I've created that requires a user to log in via
| >> an asp page and many asp pages used throughout site. The site is
| >> accessed by close to 100 users. For the most part everything works
| >> fine, however there are a couple of users who often have trouble
| >> "logging on" I put that in quotes becaue these people tend to be the
| >> computer challenged type so not really certain based on the feedback
| >> that I'm getting from them as to exactly what they are doing or where
| >> they are getting to or coming from.
| >>
| >> What it sounds like is happening is when they click on the link to go
| >> to log in page they get the: "the page requested cannot be
| >> displayed" error. Two poeple that seem to have the most trouble are
| >> both accessing via an AOL account. I'm wondering if there's a setting
| >> in AOL that disables scripts or asp pages or something else? Any idea
| >> what can casue problems displaying asp pages via an aol account??
| >>
| >
| >
|
|

 

[Ed_R]

The user starts out on the home page which is an html page. The yclick
on a link that takes them to another html page. That page then
re-directs them to the asp login page

 

[Stefan B Rusynko]

So you are using html (meta) redirects which is probably your problem
(or a cookie to decide whether to use html redirect)

Why not just send them straight to the asp page



| The user starts out on the home page which is an html page. The yclick
| on a link that takes them to another html page. That page then
| re-directs them to the asp login page
|

 

[Ed_R]

Good question. To be honest, that was almost two years ago and don't
recall why it was done that way. From what I recall it was easier to
modify the one html page to re-direct to the asp as opposed to modify a
lot of page to instead point to the asp page. Not a real good reason I
know, but from what I recall that was why. Actually on my things to do
list was to eliminate the re-direct, but till now hadn't been a real
high priority.

Is there something though that causes this re-direct problem to become
intermittent? As I said it's been set up like this for close to 2
years, and the people that have problems currently didn't always have
problems accessing. Seems like it won't work for him, then a week or
so later he's fine, then two months later, he has a problem again.

 

[Stefan B Rusynko]

As ISPs tighten up user "security" - like short redirects
- probably something aol may have tightened up




| Good question. To be honest, that was almost two years ago and don't
| recall why it was done that way. From what I recall it was easier to
| modify the one html page to re-direct to the asp as opposed to modify a
| lot of page to instead point to the asp page. Not a real good reason I
| know, but from what I recall that was why. Actually on my things to do
| list was to eliminate the re-direct, but till now hadn't been a real
| high priority.
|
| Is there something though that causes this re-direct problem to become
| intermittent? As I said it's been set up like this for close to 2
| years, and the people that have problems currently didn't always have
| problems accessing. Seems like it won't work for him, then a week or
| so later he's fine, then two months later, he has a problem again.
|