Error Message

[command]

My Error Log is showing consistently the same errors:

 

/home/****/public_html/404.shtml

/home/****/public_html/favicon.ico

 

I have no clue what this means. I've checked my CSS and HTML for any reference to "favicon" and can find none.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

Colette

[TCH-Bruce]

Some browsers look for a favicon file, if you don't have one you will see errors for it.

 

Create a custom 404 error page and you will not see the 404.shtml error anymore in your logs.

 

A 404 error is what a user gets when they seek something on your site and it does not exist.

[command]

Some browsers look for a favicon file, if you don't have one you will see errors for it.

 

Create a custom 404 error page and you will not see the 404.shtml error anymore in your logs.

 

A 404 error is what a user gets when they seek something on your site and it does not exist.

 

 

Thanks! Can I push my luck by asking how I create a custom 404 error page? I know I need to go to the "Error Pages" in Cpanel and then down to 404. Then what? "Requested URL" gives me the following:

<!--#echo var="REQUEST_URI"-->. What should I add in there? Or am I on the wrong track?

 

Thanks again,

Colette

[TCH-Bruce]

What I did on my site was to create another html page called 404.htm

 

In that file is a site map of my site. The title of the page is "Error page does not exist".

 

In the .htaccess file in the public_html folder (you will create one if you don't have one) add the following line. If you create a page called 404.htm replace your-page-name.htm with 404.htm.

 

>ErrorDocument 404 /your-page-name.htm

 

Anytime someone enters a url that does not exist will be served that page.

[command]

What I did on my site was to create another html page called 404.htm

 

In that file is a site map of my site. The title of the page is "Error page does not exist".

 

In the .htaccess file in the public_html folder (you will create one if you don't have one) add the following line. If you create a page called 404.htm replace your-page-name.htm with 404.htm.

 

>ErrorDocument 404 /your-page-name.htm

 

Anytime someone enters a url that does not exist will be served that page.

 

I don't mean to be dense. I have three .htaccess files in the public_html folder, two that apparently have no size whatsoever. I don't know how to open them or what they might say.

 

I can create an html 404.htm page okay. I don't understand what you mean though by "in the file is a site map...". Nor do I understand what to do with the .htaccess file. Sorry! I suppose if this is too complicated I can just ignore the errors :-)

 

Colette

[TCH-Thomas]

The .htaccess you are looking for are just called .htaccess

There might be 1 or 2 more, but they are backups I believe.

 

If you place a site map in the error file it will be easier for your visitors to go to another page that do exists.

 

To call the error file, you will need to put the line

ErrorDocument 404 /your-page-name.htm

inside your .htaccess file.

 

Don´t forget to rename your error file to whatever you want to call it (in bold above).

[TCH-Bruce]

My site map is just a page which looks like all my other pages on my site with links to all the pages on my site.

[command]

My site map is just a page which looks like all my other pages on my site with links to all the pages on my site.

 

 

Okay, I understand part of this. I'll work on understanding the rest of it before I simply pester you all to early deaths.

 

One more question though now, if I may. I managed to see that .htaccess is blank, as is .htaccess1162143719. But .htaccess1662143704 has a string that apparently refers only to Front Page: "# -FrontPage-IndexIgnore .htaccess */.??*........."

 

Since I'm not using Front Page, do I care? Shall is simply create a new .htaccess page and delete these other three? Or create a new .htaccess page and include the Front Page instructions?

 

Thanks again,

Colette

[TCH-Thomas]

No, let them all stay.

 

However, its the one only called .htaccess you want to edit, no other one. The others are backups.

[command]

No, let them all stay.

 

However, its the one only called .htaccess you want to edit, no other one. The others are backups.

 

 

Thanks, gentlemen! I appreciate your help.

Colette

[TCH-Thomas]

You´re welcome.

[sheryltoo]

I know this is an old thread but I'm seeing this same error regarding the 404 error and file not found and would like to straighten it out only I'm not really sure what these instructions are telling me to do, plus since this thread is old, I was wondering if there were any updated tips on fixing this.

I've read a bunch of old messages and some of them talked about using an favicon icon. Is that necessary?

 

So about these instructions. I know how to write a html file but I don't understand how to write a .htacess file since I don't see that I have any in my public folder.

Do I just use notepad?

Is .htacess the extension like html? If so, do I need to give it a name, then .htaccess?

 

I noticed in my cpanel under Advanced, there's a tab for error pages. I clicked on edit 404 and it brought up what looked like a text editor. Can you create your html file there and the .htaccess file? If so, how exactly do you do it?

Sheryl

[TCH-Bruce]

If you are getting an error for just the favicon why not just create one.

 

Instructions for creating a favicon

[sheryltoo]

I believe I followed the directions correctly for making a favicon.ico 16x16 image and uploaded it to my public html folder. Was that where it belongs? If so, it's not showing up.

Do I need to do something else? And what if you have a sub domain? Do I need to put something in that folder?

Sheryl

[TCH-Thomas]

Please make sure it has the extension .ico and is placed in public_html and it should work, otherwise please let us know step by step how you did and we troubleshoot from there.

 

If you want the same favicon to show up in all sub folders/domains I believe you only need to place it it public_html, but if you want a different favicon in another folder you would need to upload one to that folder as well.

[sheryltoo]

I'm making some progress. I decided to start all over again and used a different on line ico generator and now the favicon is showing on my main site and forum but not on my sub domain.

BTW, it seems to have worked because this generator made the ico 32x32.

I read on one of the sites I found when trying to research how to do this that someone else couldn't make the ico work using a 16x16 ico. They had to use a 32x32.

 

But now do you have any suggestions on how I can get this to show for my sub domain?

Thanks.

Sheryl

[Madmanmcp]

But now do you have any suggestions on how I can get this to show for my sub domain?

 

I believe the file needs to be located in each subdomain folder. Thats how I got mine to work.

[sheryltoo]

It all of a sudden showed up today but the favicon was smaller in the sub domain. I thought perhaps I uploaded my original 16x16 ico to the sub domain so I deleted it and installed it again making sure I picked the 32x32 ico but it didn't make the favicon any bigger. And now it's appearing smaller in my main folder and at my main forum.

It seems to have a mind of it's own.

In any event, it looks as if it's gotten rid of the error regarding no favicon.ico file found so that's one good thing, but I see I was also getting errors saying no robots.txt file found so I found some instructions telling me to create a robot.txt file which I did so we'll see if that helps.

My main concern was getting rid of the errors. If my favicon wants to show up that's great, if not I don't think I'll worry about it unless I decide it would be a nice feature to have, lol.

Sheryl

[TCH-Bruce]

Lots of info here.

 

You can simply create a blank text file called robots.txt and put it in the /public_html folder and the errors will go away.

 

Some robots (spiders) you want crawling your site. Others you don't. So read over the info at the link above and choose which you wish to block and add them to the robots.txt file.

[sheryltoo]

Thanks for the link.

I did make that txt file and knocking on wood, but it seems to have stopped that error from coming.

Is there a way to clear out that log with the past 300 errors?

Sheryl

[TCH-Bruce]

The log will clear automatically over time.

[sheryltoo]

I'm back again and need

I seem to have gotten rid of the robot and favicon error but I'm getting a lot of 404.shtml errors and want to try and make a custom 404 error page only I have no idea what I'm suppose to put on it.

I've found some tutorials that tell me to put this line on a 404 .htaccess error page:

ErrorDocument 404 /404-error-page.html

It also suggest that I put a link back to my site but I don't know what codes I need to use to do this or if it needs to be in a certain place.

It then sounds as if I have to add a file like this to my site..... notfound.html .

Do I have to set up and html page using starting html tags, closing tags, title, head, and body opening and closing tags?

Do I put something on this file or just save an empty file using notfound.html for the file name?

 

Getting back to the .htaccess file, do I need to edit the one that's already on my site?

 

Here's a copy of that file with my personal information x'd out:

 

# -FrontPage-

 

IndexIgnore .htaccess */.??* *~ *# */HEADER* */README* */_vti*

 

<Limit GET POST>

order deny,allow

deny from all

allow from all

</Limit>

<Limit PUT DELETE>

order deny,allow

deny from all

</Limit>

AuthName www.XXXX.com

AuthUserFile /home/XXXXpublic_html/_vti_pvt/service.pwd

AuthGroupFile /home/XXXX/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.grp

 

I don't know what any of that means.

If I have to add to it, where do I put the added lines and what exactly would I put if I want to show a link back to my site.

 

Sheryl

[TCH-Thomas]

To create a 404 - Not found page you would need to create a normal html page and call it whatever you want.html, easiest would be to call it 404.html

 

In my opinion it should say that it can not find what the visitor was looking for.

Also, include a link back to your index page (example,

Back to Index

 

Except for that, include anything you think is important.

 

Put this file in your public_html.

 

Then in your .htaccess file include on a new line:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html

 

Upload the htaccess and you should be good to go.

[sheryltoo]

Thanks for explaining what I needed to do. It's all sinking in now and making sense.

Sheryl

[sheryltoo]

Just wanted to tell you that it looks as if I got this all figured out and working.

My error page is working.

I've been getting some other file doesn't exist errors for smileys and I'm not sure if this takes care of it so I'll have to wait until my error log clears out and see if I'm still getting errors.

 

Thanks again for your help. It really turned the lightbulb on in my head.

Sheryl

[TCH-Thomas]

Don´t know what you mean with smilies.

Do you have a page with smilies or do you have a sentence here and there ending with a smiley like this sentence do?

 

If it´s an occasional smiley here and there, the error won´t go away until you reupload the simley I believe.

 

404-pages are only for pages that the server can´t find. If your site uses frames, let´s say one for navigation (left) and one for the main text/images etc (right), and lets say the left navigation can´t be found by the server, then the 404-page will show in that left fram.