[squid-users] Re: www.411.com and netscape 4.78 creating problem with squid

Jigar Rasalawala wrote:

> During investigation i found that, that page contains JS object (
> http://infousa.com/pageview.js ) it is creating problem. I looked at
> the HTTP response header
> for JS object, I found Content-Length is ZERO for JS. It's persistant
> connection. If i reduced the time specified by "pconn_timeout" to 5
> sec. then page is coming
> after 5 secs.

Defenitely looks like Netscape Communicator is broken, not supporting
zero sized replies on persistent connections.

Saw this behaviour of Netscape Communicator on another link as well
today, having a quite different problem.

If this really bugs you, then as a workaround disable the use of
client-side persistent connections, or set the timeout relatively short.
It is a pity as the use of persistent connections can really help
percieved performance, and you need at least 10-15 seconds timeout for
dialup or other "slow users with relatively long receive buffers".

The reason to why the problem is not seen when going directly is purely
becase the site is using a very short timeout for the connection (2
seconds only).

The problem can easily be reproduced in Netscape Communicator with or
without a proxy by requesting a zero sized file from a server (or proxy)
supporting persistent connections. The browser will "hang" until the
server timesout the connection, which prompts Netscape Communicator to
alert abouta zero-sized object (alert not shown on inlined objects, only
the page URL)

Regards
Henrik Nordström
Squid Developer
MARA Systems AB, Sweden
Received on Wed Jan 09 2002 - 16:15:15 MST