406 Not Acceptable Error
I received an email from Joe Clark a few days ago titled Your site is borking in Lynx and it stated he received a 406 Not Acceptable error every time. I used the Yellowpipe Lynx Firefox plugin (or you could just use the Yellowpipe online Lynx viewer) and he was entirely right. Any ideas why this would be so?
My own cursory investigation shows that my accounts on the newer PHP5 server throw the 406 Not Acceptable error in Lynx every time. Whereas my other accounts on a different server using an older version of PHP work perfectly fine. This could even be caused by the Apache module mod_security if its filter list includes the word lynx, although the .htaccess fix for that didn’t work. Apparently the mod_security filter setting inclusion of lynx isn’t that uncommon, although I’d have to ask why Lynx winds up on that security list. Obviously there’s something about Lynx I don’t know about, right? But that’s another story.
Further testing showed that the 406 Not Acceptable error wasn’t anything to do with my theme files because even changing back to the classic theme in WordPress gave the same error. And it occurs on every page so it’s not a content issue. So I have to assume its a setting on the server. All other browsers have no problem viewing the page as far as I can tell. Its Lynx specific. I understand why 406 errors occur but wonder if this is a configuration issue on the server?
I haven’t heard back from the server people as its a non-urgent issue. But at this point I’m open to suggestions. Any ideas?
July 8th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I got the error at one local festival website, and since
it has a history of doing bad in this error, I assumed it
was a deliberate thing (ie they were discriminating
against browsers).
I discovered that links worked fine with the page, never
getting the error, and if I invoked lynx with a useragent
flag on the command line, it worked fine. The specific
useragent didn’t matter, I could use “mozilla” and I
could use “screw” and the error message went away.
At some point, the message stopped appearing, I’m
assuming because I put something on my webpage and
they tend to check it.
But the other day, I tried a different webpage for
the first time, and got the same error message. I’ve
used lynx since 1996, and while I’ve gotten pages telling
me to get a “better” browser, those have been deliberate,
put their by the webdesigner. I’ve never gotten this
specific error until the end of May. This second instance
indicated it was happening somewhere else, most people
unaware of it as they are generally unaware of lynx.
So it does seem like a recent release has caused this
error message to appear. I find your entry because I got
curious about that, and did a search to see where the
problem lies. Your’s was the first hit, so I don’t have
any answers other than it’s got to be embedded into something.
Michael
July 8th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Hi Michael, interesting. I think its a server config error though. The accounts on one server I use work fine in Lynx. The other server - none of the sites work in Lynx and all throw the same 406 error.
And that was the same even for a very basic test case and swapping sites over. So the code doesn’t have issues that I could locate. In this instance anyway.
It would be interesting to find the answer though as you may very well be correct.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Joe found me too, Steven, on a post about accessibility no less. Fair cop. In my case it’s mod_security and Lynx was getting a 412 Precondition Failed error. I’m following up with my web host as well, to try to learn more about how to filter around Lynx.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Yep fair cop lol…
I know its server specific simply because all of the other sites that I work on get no issue. But all of my blogs - on the newer PHP5 server - get this error in Lynx.
I’m not sure its a deal breaker. But I’m definately concerned. My hosting is sponsored and in most cases they provide super service and would have resolved this straight away, but there are extenuating details to their availability for me at present. If that sounds vague you’re not alone there lol.
But overall they provide me with top hosting that I’d recommend.
I’ve never heard of the 412 precondition failure. Excellent. Sounds like Joe is hunting for Lynx users far and wide lol.
What I don’t get is why the server has a default setting to filter out Lynx anyway. Does Lynx somehow pose security issues?
Ha ha but yes its a fair cop. Like being caught out on my blockquotes recently by a co-worker. Something I knew but had become lazy about because of CMS authoring.
Hey we should get a club going with t-shirts - “I bjorked Joe Clark on Lynx”, with royalties going his way for use of the name, naturally.
On the back it could say “You do know Lynx exists, right?”
Drop a message if you solve your issue. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they were very similar in the solution.
August 8th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
BTW I notice that neither site that gets this 406 error in Lynx works with Vischeck either.
What’s the relationship there? Anyone got the lowdown?