peazak
asked on
404 Errors but pages exsist and appear after user hits refresh
Hello,
I am experiencing some strange 404 errors with IIS. A 404 appears randomly when you try to view pages throughout the site. If you hit refresh in the browser, the page will appear. These are all ASP pages. Also, the 404 error page that appears is a default page (see below). However, IIS is suppose to be displaying a custom error page everytime. The custom page only shows up on pages that DO NOT actually exist but not for pages that are randomly not visible.
The only thing that I know of that has changed is our traffic. Certain staff member have registered the site with free services that ping the site for uptime. The only thing I can think of is that it's almost a DOS attack.
Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Here is the error:
The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
-------------------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----
Please try the following:
If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.
Open the home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
Click the Back button to try another link.
Click Search to look for information on the Internet.
HTTP 404 - File not found
Internet Explorer
I am experiencing some strange 404 errors with IIS. A 404 appears randomly when you try to view pages throughout the site. If you hit refresh in the browser, the page will appear. These are all ASP pages. Also, the 404 error page that appears is a default page (see below). However, IIS is suppose to be displaying a custom error page everytime. The custom page only shows up on pages that DO NOT actually exist but not for pages that are randomly not visible.
The only thing that I know of that has changed is our traffic. Certain staff member have registered the site with free services that ping the site for uptime. The only thing I can think of is that it's almost a DOS attack.
Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Here is the error:
The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
--------------------------
Please try the following:
If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.
Open the home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
Click the Back button to try another link.
Click Search to look for information on the Internet.
HTTP 404 - File not found
Internet Explorer
Sounds like you may have network problems, packet loss issues, dns issues, proxy server issues, etc.
I think it's more likely that you have genuine 404 issues that you just don't understand yet.
What are you seeing in your IIS access logs? We have found IIS to be very reliable in offering custom error pages and in giving 404 page not found when the page is not found.
You've had one good idea about the cause of 404s, if you're seeing them in your logs: incorrect URLs posted to external sites.
One way to debug this is to google for the URLs which are giving 404s in your logs. It might help you locate an external site with the wrong link to your site.
>>The custom page only shows up on pages that DO NOT actually exist but not for pages that are randomly not visible.
This sounds as if the custom error page for 404 is showing up when you expect.
What do you mean by pages "that are randomly not visible"? Do you mean that in your IIS log you check the URL and it's for a valid page, but IIS responded with 404? Or do you mean that in your testing from a browser, sometimes you click on a link to your page and it's empty? Or you click on a link to a page and it gives you a 404 when you are sure that it's a correct URL?
It would help if you could post the URL you are trying which exhibits the wrong behavior, and the IIS access log line which corresponds to it. Then we might be able to help you more with trouble-shooting.
>>that it's almost a DOS attack.
This is almost certainly not the case. When you have a real DOS attack, you know because your Web server shuts down -- is completely inaccessible. It's much more likely that there are a series of human errors which are cascading -- maybe because of webcrawlers -- and causing a lot of 404s.
What are you seeing in your IIS access logs? We have found IIS to be very reliable in offering custom error pages and in giving 404 page not found when the page is not found.
You've had one good idea about the cause of 404s, if you're seeing them in your logs: incorrect URLs posted to external sites.
One way to debug this is to google for the URLs which are giving 404s in your logs. It might help you locate an external site with the wrong link to your site.
>>The custom page only shows up on pages that DO NOT actually exist but not for pages that are randomly not visible.
This sounds as if the custom error page for 404 is showing up when you expect.
What do you mean by pages "that are randomly not visible"? Do you mean that in your IIS log you check the URL and it's for a valid page, but IIS responded with 404? Or do you mean that in your testing from a browser, sometimes you click on a link to your page and it's empty? Or you click on a link to a page and it gives you a 404 when you are sure that it's a correct URL?
It would help if you could post the URL you are trying which exhibits the wrong behavior, and the IIS access log line which corresponds to it. Then we might be able to help you more with trouble-shooting.
>>that it's almost a DOS attack.
This is almost certainly not the case. When you have a real DOS attack, you know because your Web server shuts down -- is completely inaccessible. It's much more likely that there are a series of human errors which are cascading -- maybe because of webcrawlers -- and causing a lot of 404s.
ASKER
Thanks mrcoffee365 for taking the time. If you want to click a few links on the site and let me know what you see, that would be awesome.
The site is: www.export.gov
Clicking links on this page will bring up the 404: http://www.export.gov/archive/index.asp
To see the custom 404: www.export.gov/showmethe404 (or something of that nature)
I've contacted our network team to see if they can see the problem on the routers etc. The IIS logs don't give any useful information.
The site is: www.export.gov
Clicking links on this page will bring up the 404: http://www.export.gov/archive/index.asp
To see the custom 404: www.export.gov/showmethe404 (or something of that nature)
I've contacted our network team to see if they can see the problem on the routers etc. The IIS logs don't give any useful information.
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ASKER
I couldn't find anything in the logs. I believe it's a network issue. Thanks for your help.
I did what I suggested you do, and googled for references to www.export.gov. I found a Word doc online that might be the source of your 404s. This URL:
http://www.buyusa.gov/spokane/may07newsletter.doc
has a Word doc which has hyperlinks to pages on your site, and one of them is:
http://www.export.gov/archive/index.asp
When I click on the link in the newsletter Word doc I downloaded from the Web (living dangerously, I know), I got this message from Word:
Unable to open http://www.export.gov/archive/index.asp. The Internet site reports that the item you requested could not be found. (HTTP/1.0 404)
I can't tell what's wrong with the link. When I added a link to this Word doc myself, the Word hyperlink worked fine. So -- there's something odd about this link in this Word doc. It's true for all of the links in this Word doc to your site, in fact. Other links in the Word doc seem to work fine.
So the Word docs from one of your sites might be the source of the odd 404 messages you're seeing.
http://www.buyusa.gov/spokane/may07newsletter.doc
has a Word doc which has hyperlinks to pages on your site, and one of them is:
http://www.export.gov/archive/index.asp
When I click on the link in the newsletter Word doc I downloaded from the Web (living dangerously, I know), I got this message from Word:
Unable to open http://www.export.gov/archive/index.asp. The Internet site reports that the item you requested could not be found. (HTTP/1.0 404)
I can't tell what's wrong with the link. When I added a link to this Word doc myself, the Word hyperlink worked fine. So -- there's something odd about this link in this Word doc. It's true for all of the links in this Word doc to your site, in fact. Other links in the Word doc seem to work fine.
So the Word docs from one of your sites might be the source of the odd 404 messages you're seeing.