uber1024's WebLog

It's not hot wings and beer, but it's still okay

Update: AJAX to secure servers bug

So, we tried just about everything that can be done within a day (replaced the web service with a proxy ASP page, ran the .send() method in a loop and checked for a valid result, maybe something else ... I don't know.  I'm working on 2 hours of sleep), and still we get "The download of the specified resource has failed".  I don't believe we've heard back from Microsoft.

If we don't hear back from Microsoft soon, we'll have to yank out AJAX and spend a week rewriting this particular page on the server, which would suck since the rest of the site is AJAX-based.  A google search turned up the idea to make sure that there is at least one Language selected in IE.  That might enable us to work without having to roll back a 4 month project because of this issue.

Update:  We heard back from Microsoft.  They've got nothin', as do we.  I guess we've got work to do, but that's why we get paid, right?

Update 2:  My programmers tell me that Microsoft Support has really pulled out all the stops to help us.  Even if they don't find any kind of resolution to this issue, and I suspect that there isn't one, it certainly was not from lack of trying.
Posted: Jan 04 2006, 09:51 AM by uber1024 | with 6 comment(s)
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Comments

Guy Murphy said:

From your previous entry...

[quote]
It happens about once every 20-25 requests and just returns an error message that says "The download of the specified resource has failed."
[/quote]

If it's happening 5% of the time, wrap the client side caller with a thin wrapper looking for the error return, and recall.... set a limit on the number of calls before critical failure.

Problem patched until you can find out what is really going on.

Second alternative... use IFrame buffering. Provide a drop in replacement for your request that buffers through a hidden IFrame... again, a patch until you sort out what's going on.

Both of these hacks can be done maintaining the same interface you're already using, meaning you won't have to hack your existing code, just the drop in.

Good luck.
# January 4, 2006 11:41 AM

uber1024 said:

Those are some good ideas, unfortunately we tried them and ruled them out. The request doesn't return until after the .asmx page times out (tests show that retreiving the maximum amount of data under a heavy server load should take no more than 20 seconds, so there's no good reason for the timeout).

We've already started the de-AJAXing of this particular section of the website. It's a shame, because the rest of the site is AJAX and it just flat-out works.
# January 4, 2006 12:25 PM

Gabriel Halsmer said:

Ah. So its a problem with the .asmx, not XmlHttp?
# January 4, 2006 2:32 PM

uber1024 said:

Not at all. The whole point of my previous comment was that it's NOT a problem with the .asmx (well, that was half of the point). It's one more thing that we ruled out.

That .asmx file handles at least tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of requests per day and has near-zero failure rate. In this situation, the failure rate is at least 100,000 times higher.
# January 4, 2006 2:38 PM

Dave said:

One thing that got me once was using referential URLs. It was really flakey. Maybe 1 out of 50 times IE would have a problem. I changed over to absolute urls something like "/test/mypage.aspx" instead of just "mypage.aspx" and everything was happy.

Maybe you should give that a shot.
# January 4, 2006 6:19 PM

DuncanS said:

How 'bout running Fiddler to see what was going on?
# January 23, 2006 6:12 PM
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