general/1142: Problem report #1140

[Joakim Larsson <jo...@korridor.se>]

>Number:         1142
>Category:       general
>Synopsis:       spurious POST or PUT without Content-length errors
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    apache (Apache HTTP Project)
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   apache
>Arrival-Date:   Wed Sep 17 06:40:02 1997
>Originator:     dsalot@haggle.com
>Organization:
apache
>Release:        1.1.3
>Environment:
Linux 2.0.30
>Description:
I think this problem has been reported by others, but I always see
it closed out without a satisfactory answer.  My site gets about
100,000 hits per day and I get a few "POST or PUT without Content-length"
errors per hour.  The users who generate these errors are all
using mainstream browsers and they all report that repeated
attempts to POST form data basically hangs their browsers.
I'm guessing that the problem is related at least partially to
keep-alive, since it seems to be repeatable on a given connection.
>How-To-Repeat:
I have not been able to repeat this problem myself, and it happens
about 1 in 10,000 hits, so I have no idea how to repeat it.  It
can happen with any page that contains a form, such as
http://www.haggle.com/account.html
>Fix:
None.  Any ideas would be appreciated
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:

Hi,

I got the same problem narrowed down to a particular version of Netscape
(v3.03)
on Windows NT 4.0 connected with RAS (PPP) over a modem link to our server.
I'm
setting up a version of Matt Wright's WWWBoard software and I can repeat
the problem
every first time I try to submit a new article to the WWWBoard. Every
second time
I try, it will come through and update the archive correctly.

I'm using the standard Apache 1.1.3 with shared memory turned on. No extra
modules.

Using the MSIE I do not get the same problem and my collegues on Mac
reports no 
problems at all.

If you like you can access the prototype WWWBoard configuration at:

http://www.korridor.se/~joakim/wwwboard/wwwboard.html

I will let it stay around for a couple of days or so for your reference and
build
my workaround elsewhere. Let me know if you need further details.

I'm also eager to solve the problem.

Joakim


Full text of PR number 1140: