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Errors in HttpXmlApi 1.05

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Category: Web Wiz Web App Support Forums
Forum Name: Web Wiz Forums
Forum Description: Support forum for Web Wiz Forums application.
URL: https://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=29990
Printed Date: 31 March 2026 at 9:29pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.08 - https://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Errors in HttpXmlApi 1.05

Posted By: dotcom
Subject: Errors in HttpXmlApi 1.05
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 4:47pm

The methods below both produce HTTP 500 errors when executed from the test forms (and also when executed by client applications). The errors did not occur in v1.04 of the API.

Please can you tell me urgently if there is a fix or workaround available for these errors, and a date by which they will be fixed.

Regards

Paul Taylor

Replies:

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 4:52pm

We are not aware of any issue with the API which was only updated to support case sensitive passwords by removing 'LCase' from the password input. This should not have caused any issues.

You have not said what methods that you were having problems with if you can then will be able to investigate further.

Also if you can enabled detailed error messages, instead of the generic 500 message, then this will also help solve the issue.

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Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 4:59pm

You can also test many of the methods in the XML API on the demo forum at:-

http://demo.webwizforums.com/HttpAPI.asp" rel="nofollow - http://demo.webwizforums.com/HttpAPI.asp

I have just been through every one and not able to replicate the 500 error message that you mention.

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:12pm

The methods in question were GetMemberByID and GetMemberByName. I have two separate servers running v1.05 of the API and both of these methods return errors while other methods do not.

The forum otherwise appears to be working correctly.

Does the API log errors anywhere where I can get more information about what has happened?

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:15pm

By the way, the admin password in use has only lower-case letters and digits, and the admin username is not the "standard" one, but in any case consists only of lower-case letters.

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:21pm

You would need to get the detailed ASP error message from the server in order to find out what the issue will be as this gives what the error is and the line number.

I have tested both methods on the demo forum API and they are both working without error:-

http://demo.webwizforums.com/HttpAPI.asp?action=GetMemberByName&Username=Administrator&Password=letmein&MemberName=Administrator" rel="nofollow - http://demo.webwizforums.com/HttpAPI.asp?action=GetMemberByName&Username=Administrator&Password=letmein&MemberName=Administrator

http://demo.webwizforums.com/HttpAPI.asp?action=GetMemberByID&Username=Administrator&Password=letmein&MemberID=1" rel="nofollow - http://demo.webwizforums.com/HttpAPI.asp?action=GetMemberByID&Username=Administrator&Password=letmein&MemberID=1

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:22pm

And also in case it helps, if I execute the methods with an incorrect password, they return the normal "Admin Login Fail" method, so whatever failure is happening is happening after the authentication check.

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:31pm

Unfortunately with out a detailed error message with line number can't really help any further as unable to replicate the issue.

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Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:31pm

Thanks, but where do I get the error message from?

Also, it could be failing because of something to do with the admin credentials I am using, which are not the ones that you are testing.

Indeed, when I change the admin password to one that contains only letters, it works, so the error is related to the admin password I had set. Perhaps you could do some testing around that yourself to find the bug.

Can you let me know when a fix is available for this, please?

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:37pm

You need to configure your server, in the IIS manager, to send detailed error messages to the web browser. If you are using IE you also need to turn off friendly error messages in IE.

Once have these can look in to the issue, but as it is now coming up to 6pm here and free forum support is Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, it will be Monday before able to reply back to in this forum now.

Once we have more information on the issue to be abler to replicate it in the lab the fix will be in the next version.

If you need to have a fix sooner and you have paid support, then you should start a support ticket in your Client Area account, but would still need the detailed error message to replicate the error.

If you have the the 1.04 version of the HttpAPI.asp you could use that, as it should work with the latest version.

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:43pm

By the way have just tested the two methods with the API using a Admin password with letters and numbers and it still worked.

If you believe the error is due to the admin username and/or password that you are using could you please PM them to me and can use these to run some tests in the lab.

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:56pm

How do I configure the server to send detailed error messages to the browser? I am using FF, and the server is running IIS7. I have tried setting the ASP configuration "Send errors to browser" but I still get a generic Http 500 error message.

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 25 November 2011 at 5:58pm

Also, even with the admin password containing all letters, I am getting 500 errors for some user names with the GetMemberByName method.

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 28 November 2011 at 11:13am

Hi,

Please can you tell me how I can get IIS7 to send error messages to the browser to help diagnose this problem.

Thanks,

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 28 November 2011 at 11:41am

Have tested in the lab with the admin password that you sent and are still unable to find any issues.

The page bellow will help configure IIS 7 for detailed errors.

To enabled error messages for Classic ASP see the page below:-

http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/564/classic-asp-script-error-messages-no-longer-shown-in-web-browser-by-default/" rel="nofollow - http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/564/classic-asp-script-error-messages-no-longer-shown-in-web-browser-by-default/

To enable detailed error messages sent to remote browsers see the page below:-

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rakkimk/archive/2007/05/25/iis7-how-to-enable-the-detailed-error-messages-for-the-website-while-browsed-from-for-the-client-browsers.aspx" rel="nofollow - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rakkimk/archive/2007/05/25/iis7-how-to-enable-the-detailed-error-messages-for-the-website-while-browsed-from-for-the-client-browsers.aspx

Both these need to be enabled in IIS 7 to receive a detailed error messages for Classic ASP including line number.

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 28 November 2011 at 1:08pm

OK, thanks, now I see the error message. It is:

XML Parsing Error: syntax error
Location: http://prepro.int.ivi.net/foro/en/HttpAPI.asp?action=GetMemberByName&Username=xxxx&Password=xxxx&MemberName=paul
Line Number 1, Column 45:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator. <p/> If you are the system administrator please click <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=82731">here</a> to find out more about this error.
--------------------------------------------^

Any idea what could cause this? The API is running on an english language instance of the forum, but it is a spanish site, and may have spanish characters in it as a result ... could this cause the error?

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 28 November 2011 at 1:26pm

Need the detailed ASP error message, not the browsers XML parsing error.

Without the ASP error message can't help you.

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 28 November 2011 at 4:37pm

That is the error that the browser displays when I follow the steps outlined in the two articles you passed to me. If there are other steps that I need to take to get diagnostic information, please can you tell me what they are.

Regards,

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 28 November 2011 at 5:12pm

The server does appear from your last error that it may be returning the detailed error message, but this would be in HTML format not XML format.

The page that you are calling has a XML MIME type so the browser is expecting XML which is a strict coding standard, when the browser attempts to render the XML and gets the detailed server error which is in HTML the browsers XML parser crashes giving the XML parser error you gave in your previous post.

What you need to do is view the source code of the page so that you can view the HTML that it being sent by the detailed error message from the server.

You should then be able to pull from the source code the parts of teh detailed error message that are needed, which are the reason for the error (eg. VBScript Error xxxx on line 1234).

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 28 November 2011 at 5:58pm

Unfortunately, in source view, you get the same information:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator. <p/> If you are the system administrator please click <a href=" view-source:http://go.microsoft.com/fw/?ID=82731 - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=82731">here</a> to find out more about this error.

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 29 November 2011 at 8:58am

According to the view source you still do not have detailed error messages enabled on the server.

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Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 29 November 2011 at 10:00am

Ok, configuration issue solved by making the root directory of the forum an IIS application.

I now get the following information from the forum:

error '800a000d'
Type mismatch: 'Server.HTMLEncode'
/foro/es/HttpAPI.asp, líne 327

Does that help?

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 29 November 2011 at 11:07am

That does help allot as now know the line the error is on and the part of the code causing the error.

The part of the code in question has nothing to do with the admin password, but relates to the showing of the Real Name field.

This part of the API has not changed since version 1 so very strange you now suddenly get the error. The part in questing Server.HTMLEncode(rsCommon("Real_name")) uses the ASP's HTMLEncode method to HTML encode the Real Name thus preventing formatting issues or malicious code.

A possible reason for this error is somehow the Real_Name field in tblAuthor has 'null' values for some members. This should not be the case and these 'null' values need to be removed from your database.

Posted By: dotcom
Date Posted: 29 November 2011 at 11:52am

Thanks for your reply Bruce. The error that I sent was from using GetMemberByName after I changed the admin password to one that contained no numbers.

I checked the user account in question and indeed, it had no value for the Real Name field. When I added one and retested, no error occurred.

However, since it is not mandatory for a user to give a Real Name in their profile, there will always be cases where that field is null, and the error will occur. It is also possible to create a user via the API without a real name. I would therefore expect the API to be tolerant of this condition, and handle it gracefully.

Furthermore, I am integrating a website with an existing forum which has many user accounts with no real name and I need to be able to use the API against it. Other users of your forum will be in the same position.

Can you release a patch to solve this problem?

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 29 November 2011 at 11:58am

When a user registers through the API or directly through the forum, the Real_Name field is set even if it is blank, so the Real_Name field in the database should not contain a Null value.

It should either have the persons input (their real name), or be blank, it should not have a Null value.

The next version of Web Wiz Forums, which will be 10.04 will have version 2.0 of the XML HTTP API and will add to the 'todo' list a test for Null values in the Real_Name to avoid this issue.

If you currently have support then you can fill out a support ticket from your Client Area account and we can look in to this further for you and see if can fix the issue for you.