problems with W3C Link checker

Dear Sirs;
  I have found your Link Checker (at http://validator.w3.org/checklink/ ) 
to be a major help in keeping my web pages working properly.

  I hadn't used it for some time, and yesterday tried to use it on
several pages and have had some serious problems.

  The reason I'm asking is that I've been unable to get it to work on
web pages with more than a few (10 or so) links.  It appears to time out
or something.  I've tried to use it with "Summary only" checked - on
e.g. http://www.ncsu.edu/it/open_source/chitre.html

  After a few minutes it says "Done" at the bottom of the browser - but
never shows anything after the "This may take some time ..." line.

  Without the "Summary only" box checked, it gives some lines like
Parsing...
 done (145 lines in 0.0s).
Checking anchors...
 done.
Checking link http://www.plagiarism.org/research_site/e_home.html
HEAD http://www.plagiarism.org/research_site/e_home.html  fetched in 1.2s
Checking link http://www.safeassignment.com/
HEAD http://www.safeassignment.com/  fetched in 1.3s Checking link
http://education.independent.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=611192
HEAD http://education.independent.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=611192 fetched in 1.1s
Checking link http://www.garrin.net/ngtc/Plagiarism_files/plagiarism.htm
HEAD http://www.garrin.net/ngtc/Plagiarism_files/plagiarism.htm  fetched in 2.9s
Checking link http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0153.pdf
HEAD http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0153.pdf  fetched in 1.7s
Checking link http://www.mydropbox.com/
HEAD http://www.mydropbox.com/  fetched in 1.2s
Checking link http://plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu/software.html
HEAD http://plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu/software.html 

and then shows "Done" and doesn't print the Summary or anything more.

  Searching the site, I find:

-----
 If a link checker run in "summary only" mode takes a long time, some
user agents may stop loading the results page due to a timeout. We have
placed workarounds hoping to avoid this in the code, but have not yet
found one that would work reliably for all browsers. If you experience
these timeouts, try avoiding "summary only" mode, or try using the link
checker with another browser.
-----

  It doesn't seem to work correctly with Galeon/Linux (don't remember the
version), Mozilla 1.7.5/Solaris, or Mozilla 1.4/Win2000.  

  I just tried it on IE 6.0/Win2000 Summary only mode - and it failed
exactly the same way - with "Done" but no output.

  Without Summary only, it output essentially the same lines as above
(the times weren't identical) and then said "Done" and stopped.

  So the problem doesn't seem to be Summary mode.

  I really would like to be able to use this service.  Do you have any
suggestions?

--henry

Received on Tuesday, 1 March 2005 15:47:11 UTC