I need to TRAP dnserror / Page Not Found Error Client side

[mac4511]

Hi I need help to find a way to trap failed links to pages which have been deleted. Bad links normally show a Web page with title Cannot Find Server - which seems to be an IE 5 generated page. I want to be able to either substitute my own page or trap the error and redirect back to a good page.

I have to do this WITHOUT using perl or cgi as it needs to be client side only and its got to work in ie4+ 5+ and 5.5+. I have looked at the html "onerror" event but thats only good for bad scripts not missing files.

Any ideas please.

 

[luciddream]

you can do this with your webserver, most likely and more easily, but... but, the only way to do this would be to call a function that checked the link in a hidden iframe, then using the onreadystate== "complete" property of the iframe, you could check the page once its done loading. if its title is whatever the error ones are, then you can send the user to a a page of your choice, otherwise, send him to the page the clicked on. luciddream@subdimension.com

 

[Rydel]

on the server you can set very cute 404 html pages that explain everything and provide all relevant links. for example, try:

http://dt.home.by/some_non_existent_page.htm

- it redirects to a very cute 404 page (warning, it's written in Belarusan).
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http://www.geocities.com/rydel23/

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[mac4511]

Hi guys, thanks for the help so far. One thing I forgot to make clear is that this isnt running on a server - its working on a standalone laptop PC so no server functions available. The destination url's are actually PDF files which load into a large frame next to the selection section in a narrow frame next to it. For direct file access I have a key in box for the doc. filename and the .pdf is appended to it as a complete path / url. This works fine as long as the typed name is exactly right.

Another thought I just had was, is it possible to do something like IF EXISTS... to check the filename exists in the path, therefore solving the problem...if it aint there show a message or page instead.
I believe it can be done in Visual Basic but can it be done in Javascript or VBScript or even HTML. I reckon this might be the best solution - any ideas please ?

I've been experimenting with the idea of doc titles and I can easily detect the file in the frame if it is a pdf, but if it fails the Not Found window doesnt show in the frame for some reason. I havent tried hidden frames yet.. does it have to be an IFRAME ?

All help appreciated

Thanks
mac