'''[MHo], 2007-10-23'''

Here are some observations I made while I restarted an old project: ''porting an old [tclhttpd] 3.4.x-site to the latest incarnations of that webserver, 3.5.1 or 3.5.2.''

I use my own build of that webserver, see [Tclhttpd Winservice] for further information.

----

'''The problem'''

I noticed that if I did not specify the file extension with an URL (like ''.htm'' or ''.tml''), sometimes excessive delays occur. The resulting page appears in the browser, if ever, only after a very long delay period.
Though I discover part of the program flow and learned that such page requests are satisfied via an error which was further handled by '''url_rewind''' and so on, I couldn't find any ''error''.

But there are two facts:

   * The behaviour is different to 3.4x-versions of the webserver.
   * The logic has been largely rewritten between 3.4x and 3.5x (the monolythic doc.tcl splits up to doc.tcl, fallback.tcl., etc.).

----

Today, I found out that under the ''absolutely same circumstances'' my whole tests run fine with ''Opera''. (I also tested IE7 but it failed for other reasions, as usual....). So I inspect my SeaMonkey settings once more. Just for a last test I '''disabled the Keep-Alive and/or pipelining''' Option in the '''Http-Connection'''-Settings Page (stated as experimental), and: '''that did the trick!!!'''

----

'''Conclusion'''

''There must be some subtle fact that leads to odd timeout/delay problems if a page was generated through fallback/url_unwind, in conjunction with specific browser settings in some environments.''

Unfortunately, my understanding of the code isn't good enough to track this problem further down. And, I fear, the whole [tclhttpd] isn't really maintained any more....

   * Just tested under the same conditions (ok, SeaMonkey 1.1.4 instead of 1.1.5) but on w2k (instead of xp) and without a local firewall. Everything works fine, even with pipelining turned on. The thing becomes more and more misterious...

----

'''Another one'''

Also, I found that some URLs where constructed like '''//xyz/abc''' within '''fallback.try''', which leads to wrong results later:

      :
      # set url $virtual/[string trimleft $suffix /~] ; ####### old
        set url [file join $virtual [string trimleft $suffix /~]]; ###### new
        if {[info exist data(query)] && [string length $data(query)]} {
            append url ? $data(query)
        }

        Redirect_Self $url      ;# offer what we have to the client
       :

After applying that change, that error disappears.

----

I also reported a bug at sourceforge [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1152648&group_id=12884&atid=112884], but it was a bit mazy and should be corrected and/or closed now...

----
!!!!!!
%| [Category Internet] |%
!!!!!!