3 replies to this topic

[DVHost]

Just moved over to Cartika from another provider. I must say that I'm enjoying the services, fast servers, responsive control panels and very friendly tech support whom are incredibly efficient. It's great to have someone on your side for a change.

Without further digression I wanted to talk about errors I'm encountering with my websites. I've hosted these sites virtually unchanged since 2001. Being in the hosting business for almost a decade I have no illusions; I know I will need to modify scripts etc. to accommodate the change in servers.

The real problem is having the server return proper error messages to the client. Extremely problematic to say the least. They appear to be pre-formatted generic messages that contain no usable information to debug issues.

I've submitted all of my domains to tech support to have them turn on proper error messages but still, the vague messages persist. If I'm anything like other developers, when I have a script problem I snap to it and try variations of my code and work diligently to resolve it. Here, my hands are tied. I have no idea what to do especially since my scripts are, well, were sound at my old host.

I wish we could just turn these generic error pages off and have real world usable messages sent back to the client so that we can actually develop something. Error messages are fundamental to the development process.

As a test, I created a simple ASP page using Dreamweaver called test.asp. I did this on one of the sites that support turned on error messages for me.

Outside of the usual default tags that DW includes in new pages I inserted a simple piece of code:

<% Response.Write("Hello World") %>

Perfect. I received a blank white page with "Hello World" written on it. However, if I change the code to this:

<% Response.Write(Hello World") %>

I get a generic 500 server error message with no indication that it's an ASP Syntax error, the line number it's in or anything useful. I could have a thousand lines of code in a page and no idea what is wrong or that I'm missing a quotation mark.

In addition, it appears that sites that I've had error messages turned on for, are now all off again.

Either I'm missing something or perhaps another developer can share how they deal with such a quandary.

Any input would be appreciated.

Dean

[Steven]

Hello,

Depending if you're using classic mode or integrated for IIS (if you are on win11, which I think you are) you may have to have customerrors set in web.config. Also, there is another option in IIS to show detailed messages for local only and detailed messages in general. If you are the same customer I replied to just a bit ago, I set the domain to that and it should show regular errors and not the generic "500" or whatnot.

[DVHost]

Yes, thank you Steven that worked well and I'm one in the same. ;)

I tried the web.config in the root directories of my other sites but that did not seem to have any affect on whether error messages are displayed or not though it would be nice if it did and I suspect that being in Classic mode may be the reason it does not. In the end, I truly do not know.

I will once again resubmit my list of domains to have them all show error messages.

I'm still of the opinion that error messages should be the rule and not the exception. I truly loathe to bother tech support unless it is absolutely necessary.

Edited by DVHost, 05 May 2010 - 05:34 AM.

[CH-Andrew]

Hello Dean

DVHost said:

Just moved over to Cartika from another provider. I must say that I'm enjoying the services, fast servers, responsive control panels and very friendly tech support whom are incredibly efficient. It's great to have someone on your side for a change.

Thank you !!

DVHost said:

I'm still of the opinion that error messages should be the rule and not the exception. I truly loathe to bother tech support unless it is absolutely necessary.

I completely agree with you, however, we are in a bit of a quandry here

DVHost said:

I've hosted these sites virtually unchanged since 2001.

and here in lies the problem.

This is some real legacy coding you are dealing with here. In order to move into the future, we really needed Windows 2008, IIS7 and 64bit support added to hsphere. Since parallels seemed reluctant to add such functionality, we added it ourselves. This will ensure long term viability of the hsphere platform with Windows hosting. The issue however is with legacy coding which is not compliant with current operating systems, etc.

Now, the work around is to change certain sites to 32 bit compatibility mode, however, as you have noticed, this is a manual process on our end on many fronts (1. making the change and 2. setting up error reporting to work as you desire)

We have no issue doing this for you, so, please do not hesitate in contacting us to accommodate you here. Having said this, the quandry is pretty clear. We cannot provide the error reporting and 32 bit functionality without manual intervention. On the flip side, you should not still be using such legacy coding.

The only solution is not a simple one, but, one we will need to work with.

We completely understand that many customers are migrating over from a severely outdated environment. This is not our fault, but, its also not your fault either. It is simply the reality of the situation.

The only real resolution is to manually change customers who require it to 32 bit compatibility mode, manually enable the error logging they require in IIS6.

We are formally asking customer however, once this is all done, to bring their coding up to date (on a reasonable time frame), and when done, request sites be changed back to the default 64bit mode and IIS7.

I completely understand this is more manual then we would all like, and it is a lot of work on both ends to do so. However, I am hopeful you would agree that maintaining compliance with current technology is very important for the long term viability of not only Cartika, but, our resellers as well.

Is this a reasonable (all be it, painful) strategy for us to follow?

Do you have any recommendations which may make this process easier for everyone?

Ultimately,our goal is to help customers like you migrate from legacy environments, into our systems and then bring you up to date. If you agree with this strategy and process, then I think we will all benefit long term (even with the short term pains). Again, if you have a better way of doing this, we will certainly listen. We want to make this as easy as possible for all of us. In the interim however, we are certainly willing to go the extra mile to accommodate everyone in transition. Afterall, end of the day, everyone wins this way. Cartika, our resellers and the end users.

Thanks again for your comments and your business and as always, please let us know if you have any additional questions