Random osTicket 404 Errors with IE8

Shimmerer

Hey Everyone ~

I'm helping an IT Consultant with some design for his new website. Recently though, we discovered that the osTicket section of the website we're building is delivering random 404 error messages with Internet Explorer. Here's the info:

Internet Explorer Version 8.0.6.001

Website Links:

http://www.tech90.com/support(http://www.tech90.com/support)

http://www.tech90.com/support/login.php(http://www.tech90.com/support/login.php)

Here's the gist:

When trying to navigate through the osTicket system, sometimes it will be perfectly fine - no errors at all. Then suddenly IE will deliver a 404 error. If you hit the back button and try again, sometimes it will work perfectly, and sometimes you'll get another 404 error. Other times it will chain 404s for the osTicket section to no end.

We have been unable to determine any consistency in the 404 errors, leading me to believe it is not a osTicket page specific issue.

Some thoughts:

--- I came across some references to IE having difficulty handling links inside javascript functions due to security protocols. Not sure if it might be related to this. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827667(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827667) (obviously a bit old, but it doesn't mean it's been resolved).

--- Some people have had similar issues with IE 404 errors and wordpress. The only issue with this theory is that these 404 errors are only taking place on the osTicket pages, so this might not be relevant. I haven't had a chance to try their fix yet... http://www.adrogen.com/blog/wordpress-wp-blog-headerphp-causes-404-in-ie(http://www.adrogen.com/blog/wordpress-wp-blog-headerphp-causes-404-in-ie)

Any thoughts or assistance anyone might be able to provide would be greatly appreciated. Obviously we want the site to be accessible to people with IE since they're often the ones who need tech support (jokes jokes...).

Thank you in advance for your help! ~ Michael

Kelli

Can you tell us a little bit more about your hosting environment? Have you been able to duplicate this issue in multiple installs of IE8?

Shimmerer

Linux Shared Hosting Environment

Apache Version 2.2.17

PHP 5.2.16

MySQL 5.1.47

The error is occurring on numerous IE8 clients across multiple computers. If the cache is clear, it seems to take a bit to start 404ing, but then it will become more and more frequent.

Feel free to open up a test ticket and try logging into them. The 404 errors generally occur inside the osTicket system.

Shimmerer

So I found a work around.

The issue seems to arrise from IE getting freaked out by dynamically created links and content. It gets impatient waiting for the server and decides to immediately return a 404 error. This seems to be a problem associated using wordpress and complex content (ala osTicket).

Work Around:

I applied the following code to the top of the header.php file that the site loads from to build the headers, footers, etc around osTicket.

<?php status_header(200); ?>

My understanding is that it tells the browser that everything is fine and to just relax. In doing so, IE doesn't instantly 404.

Obviously all this is theory, but it seems to have fixed the problem for us.

Thanks! ~ Michael

Kelli

I'm glad you figured out a work-around, but hat's really kind of strange. osTicket should, in no way, be responding slowly enough to cause the browser to time out. I've seen systems with thousands of tickets that respond almost instantly. Are you noticing slow load times in general, or does this just seem to be an IE quirk?

mdeluk

Great thanks this worked for me also.

We have had a few people complaining about this problem.