Re: "Too many Redirects".

On Sun, 1 Mar 2009, Helder Magalhães wrote:

> Hi Hugh,
> 
> > I have been attempting to debug a problem (with colours not showing
> > up) on an internal server.
> 
> This is somehow weird. Could you explain this better, possibly by
> attaching a code snipped or a working URL? By the way, note that

Can't supply a working URL because it's internal. It's our jobbing
system for tech support.  The problem is that the page showed up
with the table just in black and white with no coloured backgrounds.
(High priority jobs get red or orange backgrounds.)  It turned out
that there was no problem with the HTML on that page per se, but it
was Windows XP not exiting high contrast mode correctly.  The page
was being shown in High Contrast White, rather than my setting of
High Contrast Black.  Toggling high contrast fixed this in the end.

> although there are lots of color names in HTML [1] which some browsers
> recognize, «HTML and CSS standards have listed only 16 valid color
> names: aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, lime, maroon, navy,
> olive, purple, red, silver, teal, white, and yellow.» [1].
> 
> 
> > I've tried a number of browsers,
> > (Firefox, internet explorer and Opera) but when I remembered Amaya
> > is more rigorous, I tried that.
> 
> Other browsers usually also detect and record the set of found
> problems. In Firefox, for example, the list can be found in "Tools"
> menu, "Error Console" option (you may want to clear the message list
> before loading the page which you are trying to debug). ;-)

Bus but they are easier to spot with Amaya, and it is more concerned
with standar compliance than many.
> 
> 
> > It detected bugs in the HTML, but also it gave me a message about too many redirects.
> [...]
> > I can't find any means of turning this error detection off.
> 
> I'm convinced you really don't want to. Such a high number of

I'm convinced that I do :-) Especially when I'm trying to test a page
that I cannot reach because of this dialogue, because it is behind a
login screen..

> redirects is generally a bad idea for several reasons:
>  * It will cause a significant perceived slow down to your page(s) [1];
>  * It may cause old or less standard browsers from accessing your site.

I'd agree with you, but I didn't write this system, don't maintain
it, and have not had much success in asking for minor changes to be
made.  On the other hand, if I can provide reproducible evidence for
a bug, that would be useful.  I've told them about the redirects
problem, but have not had any positive response.  Maybe there needs
to be a dialogue to the effect of 

  Too many redirects for compatibility with old browser
                [Give up]  [Continue regardless -- I know what I'm doing]

so you can carry on and debug other aspects?
> 
> 
> > Looks like I didn't rspond to the permission question fast enough.
> > Retrying this. First attempt: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:12:49 +0000 (GMT)
> 
> I'm not able to understand this text portion. Again, could you detail
> a bit, maybe with examples in order to make things clear?

I've rejoined this list to raise this issue after an absence of ... years
I think.  The server insisted on me giving permission to archive emails (or
not) and I had to reply by 15:13 or something like that; I'd missed that
deadline.  I waited a while after giving permission, but didn't see my 
message appear, so resubmitted it.
> 
> 
> Hope this helps,
>   Helder Magalhães
> 
> 
> [1] http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_colornames.asp
> [2] http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#redirects
> 

        Thank you,
        Hugh