Internal errors in MetaFilter and MetaTalk

October 9, 2002 5:50 AM

Ehh, what's up, mat? Both metafilter and metatalk seem to be internal-erroring at random places, sometimes all you get is an error, sometimes it shows part of the page and then prints the error and quits half way through. This happens both with opera and lynx.
posted by fvw to Bugs at 5:50 AM (20 comments total)

IE6 as well...
posted by JoanArkham at 5:54 AM on October 9, 2002

Ditto in IE5.

Server Error
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request.

Sometimes on a page by itself, sometimes within, and interrupting, a more-or-less "normal" looking MetaFilter page.
posted by yhbc at 6:04 AM on October 9, 2002

lofi is looking fine though, in mozilla.
posted by kev23f at 6:07 AM on October 9, 2002

I think it's safe to say it happens everywhere, I just mentioned opera and lynx to show it's not browser dependent (which would be weird anyway because at the point where the error happens all the server's got is a USER_AGENT string, which output doesn't depend on anyway. Not to mention that if this kind of thing _was_ browser dependent we'd have to clobber matt to death with ponies and vibrating pancakes).
posted by fvw at 6:08 AM on October 9, 2002

kev23f: lofi's erroring for me too, from time to time. It just happens less because there's less page to output, and thus less space for it to go wrong.
posted by fvw at 6:12 AM on October 9, 2002

Also, while it's "Let's annoy matt week", I was manually connecting to see exactly what was happening, and I didn't give a useragent or any of that stuff, and got:

coldfusion.runtime.UndefinedVariableException: Variable USER_AGENT is undefined.
at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._get(Unknown Source)
at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._autoscalarize(Unknown Source)

(and a lot more of such stuff which you can recreate yourself by just connecting with a http 1.1 get and a "Host:" and nothing else)

Hey look, there's a camel walking across the horizon. I wonder if it's a sign.

posted by fvw at 6:18 AM on October 9, 2002

I'm also getting a blank mefi front page with no text aside from the recent comments box, which extends almost all the way to the left. IE 6.
posted by mblandi at 6:29 AM on October 9, 2002

Ditto mblandi. Mozilla 1.0.1
posted by rocketman at 6:51 AM on October 9, 2002

Ehh, what's up, mat?

fvw, if that was an intentional reference to the fact that this was posted to "bugs," my hat is off to you. (If not, my hat will remain firmly on my head)
posted by pardonyou? at 7:01 AM on October 9, 2002

I've seen the blank MetaFilter front page with the extended recent comments box, too - it happens when the Server Error" text I quoted above appears inside the recent comments box.
posted by yhbc at 7:21 AM on October 9, 2002

it happens on a.wholelottanothing.org as well, but not megnut. looks like it may be cold fusion related. perhaps the high ascii fixes from yesterday need to be backed out?
posted by machaus at 7:28 AM on October 9, 2002

Might just be a bad comment tag:
The error occurred in C:\metafilter sites\www.metafilter.com\contribute\post_comment_preview.cfm: line 8

6 : <cfif form.post EQ "Post">
7 :
8 : <!--- Verify the user-pass combor --->
9 : <CFQUERY NAME="match_ID" DATASOURCE="mf">
10 : SELECT user_name, user_ID, user_pass
posted by ook at 8:02 AM on October 9, 2002

Looks like Matt's playing with code to do some funky sorts or other things. I bet it'll stabilize in a little while, and then be faster, shinier, and now with a new, improved taste!

FVW! Look... the camel has a pancake on his head!
posted by SpecialK at 8:30 AM on October 9, 2002

damn you pardonyou?.. So tempting to take credit, but alas :-(. Nice one.
posted by fvw at 11:59 AM on October 9, 2002

got up this morning, hit metafilter and got this:

best part was clicking the 'server error link' took me to a marijuana site. coolest. server error. ever.
posted by quonsar at 12:02 PM on October 9, 2002

Seems to be all fixed now, and running much faster than compared to the last few days. Did'ja have to do some tinkering, Matt, or was it just a matter of cleaning out some squirrel nests in the machinery?
posted by yhbc at 12:11 PM on October 9, 2002

things should be better now. I was playing with how CF stores client variables, and after trying three different ways, have returned to the original way it was done, but have streamlined the storage so the server should hopefully stay fast.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:36 PM on October 9, 2002

i think it's interesting that metafilter and fark are often glitchy at the same time.
posted by donkeyschlong at 12:37 PM on October 9, 2002

and if you draw glasses on this photo of metafilter ... HEY!
posted by fishfucker at 1:46 PM on October 9, 2002

I've noticed that "ColdFusion" is only two letters away, and sounds almost the same as, "confusion".
posted by SpecialK at 3:42 PM on October 9, 2002