simplyjond Posted September 1, 2003 Share Posted September 1, 2003 Hi, can any of you experienced webmasters (i.e. longer than a week) help me, please? My site is up and running and as far as I can tell it seems to be operating correctly. There are no missing pages; there are no blanks where graphics should appear; I can navigate successfully to all pages; etc..... Nevertheless, my error log is filling up with 404 error messages. Mainly saying the same thing:- [Mon Sep 1 09:13:16 2003] [error] [client 161.114.64.75] File does not exist: /home/simplyj/public_html/404.shtml This ain't exactly helpful as it doesn't tell me what page or image or link or anything else is causing the error to be logged . I've looked in AWStats in the error section, but that is not giving any useful info either . How can I track down and eliminate these pesky barsteward errors ? Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated Thumbs Up . thanks, simpljond Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Sales Posted September 1, 2003 Share Posted September 1, 2003 Well from what you have shown us, that looks like your 404.shtml file is missing. Here's what I do to take a look at all my horrible little 404 and error messages though: 1. Go into AWStats 2. Go down to the very bottom of the main page where it says: HTTP Error codes 3. Click on the "404" (it should be a blue link) 4. Then that should give you the path of the page that's missing, the number of times somebody has hit it, and where the link was referred from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplyjond Posted September 1, 2003 Author Share Posted September 1, 2003 Hi, thanks for that and I've tried what you said. There is no 404 in the AWStats display (blue or not). You're right I don't have a 404.shtml file - don't know what it is, why I need it, what it would look like, and what it would contain? I see I've had search engine crawlers on the site today - could that have any connection with the 404 errors? They also appear to have been looking for a robots.txt file that I don't have either? Should I have one; what is it; what does it look like/contain, etc??? It is dreadful being this ignorant - I hate it Mad!!! Mad!!! Mad!!! thanks for your help, simplyjond Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Dick Posted September 1, 2003 Share Posted September 1, 2003 a 404 page is the error page a visitor to your site will see if they try and go to a page that doesnt exist. My 404 page is very basic but you can customize it a LOT heres an example of mine. http://www.x-trememodz.com/fhwfh.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplyjond Posted September 1, 2003 Author Share Posted September 1, 2003 Hi Mike, thanks for that example. I suppose it's too naive to say I'd like to eliminate the errors as well as have some way of dealing with them? But so far I can't even track down the cause - I know it's not caused by customers visiting the site, because there haven't been any yet!! And, as I said, I haven't experienced any errors when testing the site. thanks, simplyjond Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Don Posted September 1, 2003 Share Posted September 1, 2003 There is a great thread on 404 error pages where many family members contributed a lot of info in CPanel and Site Maintenance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplyjond Posted September 1, 2003 Author Share Posted September 1, 2003 Hi Turtle, yep, thanks for that. I've followed thru the links and created a 404error page and edited the .htaccess file etc. But since I don't know what was causing the errors, and I wasn't experiencing any problems myself when visiting the site - I don't know if it's having any effect . But I guess I'll just wait and see if the error log stops piling up with messages - that might be some sort of indication!! if only I could eliminate the varmints. thanks all, simplyjond Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Don Posted September 1, 2003 Share Posted September 1, 2003 If is the robots.txt file that is missing you can just create a blank one for now, to eliminate that error, and add to it when you need to. there is a tutorial at www.searchengineworld.com/robots/robots_tutorial.htm or www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html and for a Robots.txt syntax checker try www.sxw.org.uk/computing/robots/check.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplyjond Posted September 2, 2003 Author Share Posted September 2, 2003 Hi All, after yesterday's overnight run updated AWStats, I went in and found the section on errors and there was a 404 listed, blue colored and it was a link. So far so good . So naturally, I thought this was it - I'll find out where it's living and exterminate that pesky 404 rat once and for all . And low and behold, the link tells me that the problem is being caused by......... NEOMAIL!!!! /neo-images/neomail-bg.gif # error hits=78 Gosh, darn-it!!! All that sweat and tears checking out everything I could lay my hands on that I'd written. All that tearing my hair out. Ho hum,. Great life this web site creation, think I'll go back to playing Monopoly - at least I could pretend that I understood the rules of that game. My error log today is telling me that I've got a "404.shtml" file missing. I never refer to that file anywhere on my site. Also I put a one liner into the .htaccess file in the public_html folder and pointed all 404 errors at a specially created page called "404error.html" - so any ideas why I need a "404.shtml" file or where this error is coming from, please? thanks, simplyjond Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Don Posted September 2, 2003 Share Posted September 2, 2003 Your error file must be named 404.shtml I did not add anything to the .htaccess file, I just uploaded the 404.shtml file to the root folder and it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Dick Posted September 2, 2003 Share Posted September 2, 2003 you can also go to your cpanel and in the section labeled custom error pages modify your 404 page and it will save it as a .shtml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplyjond Posted September 2, 2003 Author Share Posted September 2, 2003 Mike, had a look at the custom 404 in cPanel and couldn't understand it at all - so rapidly got out of there. I tried putting a blank file called 404.shtml into the root folder, but it didn't stop the error log entries because apparently such a file was required in the public_html folder. So now I've created a blank file called 404.shtml into the public_html folder, as well. The reason I've created blanks, is because I don't know what should go in to such a file. Does anyone have a sample of a 404.shtml file that I could look at please? many thanks simplyjond ????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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