Recursive URL error

JerryF-Shaw wrote on 4/6/2021, 4:52 PM

We have rewritten our website using the Xara Web Designer Premium (17 or 18) and when we replace our existing site developed with Microsoft Front Page or Adobe Dream Weaver with the Xara version we see the following issue:

-) we point the Microsoft IIS to the legacy folder containing our index.htm file
-) we open a browser on another system and enter www.mydomain.com
-) all works well
-) we delete all of the files in the legacy folder and replace them with the files exported by Xara
-) we open a browser on another system and enter www.mydomain.com
-) the URL immediately goes to http://www.mydomain.com/www.mydomain...w.mydomain.com....
-) this recursion ends with the browser issuing an error
-) when we copy the legacy files back, the site works again

We are sure there is a basic issues we are overlooking, any help would be appreciated.

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 4/7/2021, 5:14 AM

@JerryF-Shaw

Hi

Did you try dropping the new website into a new folder in the wwwroot folder and set IIS to point to the new folder?

John EB
Forum Moderator

 

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

JerryF-Shaw wrote on 4/7/2021, 12:30 PM

John,

Yes, we have tried the following:

-) Create a new directory, copy Xara generated files into it and point IIS to the new directory: Did not solve issue

-) Create a new directory and copy legacy Front Page/Dream Weaver generated files into it and point IIS to the new directory: No issues

-) Copy Xara generated file into the directory with legacy files: No issues, unfortunately 90% of the files are never referenced and we have not gone through the process of elimination to see which file(s) are resolving the issues.

Current observation:

-) Legacy tools produced HTML code/files that does not show the issue

-) When we opened the existing website HTML files in Xara we noticed that incomplete pages were imported therefore the legacy Microsoft and Adobe WYSIWYG tools generated HTML files that Xara did not interpret properly. We then filled in the missing sections using Xara.

Jerry

johnebaker wrote on 4/8/2021, 9:49 AM

@JerryF-Shaw

Hi

This is beginning to sound like the web page has a loop where it is is calling itself and repeatedly adding the full URL each time eventually causing the browser to crash.

Did you initially import the whole old site into Xara Web Designer and then start modifying this?

John EB

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

JerryF-Shaw wrote on 4/8/2021, 1:17 PM

John,

 

What is interesting about the issue is all looks good when we preview the WEB Site in the WEB Designer.

When we imported the existing website HTML files into Xara we noticed that incomplete pages were imported therefore it's possible that legacy Microsoft and Adobe WYSIWYG tools generated HTML files that Xara did not interpret properly. We then filled in the missing sections using Xara. So we did not produce "idex.htm" from scratch using Xara.

Note: other than this hiccup, we think the WEB Designer looks like a great tool...

Jerry

johnebaker wrote on 4/8/2021, 1:31 PM

@JerryF-Shaw

Hi

Can you post the HTML form the header section of the index page of the new site - click the < > icon in the toolbar above, before pasting as this will preserve the code.

Check that the server does not have a URL rewrite script that is running every time a web page is requested.

If all else fails try the new website in the root folder not a sub folder and ensure the domain name points to the root.

John EB

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

JerryF-Shaw wrote on 4/8/2021, 1:39 PM 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
 <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EDGE"/>
 <meta charset="utf-8"/>
 <meta name="Generator" content="Xara HTML filter v.9.7.0.15"/>
 <meta name="XAR Files" content="index_htm_files/xr_files.txt"/>
 <title>index</title>
 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="index_htm_files/xr_fonts.css"/>
 <script><!--
 if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf('MSIE')!=-1 || navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Trident')!=-1){ document.write('<link rel="stylesheet" href="index_htm_files/xr_fontsie.css"/>');} 
 if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Android')!=-1){ document.write('<link rel="stylesheet" href="index_htm_files/xr_fontsrep.css"/>');} 
--></script>
 <script>document.documentElement.className="xr_bgh0";</script>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="index_htm_files/xr_main.css"/>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="index_htm_files/custom_styles.css"/>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="index_htm_files/xr_text.css"/>
 <script src="index_htm_files/roe.js"></script>
 <script src="index_htm_files/replaceMobileFonts.js"></script>
 <style id="xr_scstrchs">.xr_scstrch{width:100%;left:0%;z-index:-1;}</style>
 <script>xr_fitwidth=1280;xr_fws=1.50</script>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="index_htm_files/ani.css"/>
 <style>
  #xr_xr {top:0px;}
 </style>
</head>

The "index.htm" file is in the root directory pointed to by IIS for the domain.

 

Jerry,

JerryF-Shaw wrote on 4/8/2021, 4:32 PM

John,

Are thinking that something in the header is referring to a legacy file and that is why we need to keep the legacy files around?

Jerry

johnebaker wrote on 4/9/2021, 12:51 PM

@JerryF-Shaw

Hi

. . . . Are thinking that something in the header is referring to a legacy file . . . . .

Thanks for the code excerpt - I was beginning to suspect that there may be some code hangover from the old version.

I suspect we are back to the server which may be doing a rewrite - is there any code that is rewriting the URL from HTTP to HTTPS on the server or IIS setting that is rewriting the URL?

John EB

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

JerryF-Shaw wrote on 4/9/2021, 3:17 PM

John,

No, our WEB sites are currently not using HTTPS only HTTP. I am not aware of any other code running on our server. IIS just points to the "index.htm" in the root directory.

Summary:

Case 1) WEB Site with only legacy code works.

Case 2) WEB Site with only Xara code does not work.

Case 3) WEB Site with Xara code copied into legacy code directory works.

So is our next step to start deleting individual legacy code and directories to find the file/folder which is allowing the Xara code to work in our environment? If your interested, the current Xara test WEB Site is is located at "www.scsenginc.com".

Jerry

johnebaker wrote on 4/9/2021, 4:41 PM

@JerryF-Shaw

Hi Jerry

Thanks for the link to the test site - the menu bar is exhibiting an odd behaviour in that the link does not change colour to show it has been visited until you visit another page.

Looking at the page code and watching the Navigation bar links there appears to be an issue with the navigation bar - there appear to be two, one with the links specifying the pages directly, the other using javascript to build the links to the same pages.

Was the old site imported into a Web Designer template or one applied after import?

John EB

VPX 16, Movie Studio 2025, and earlier versions 2015 and 2016, Music Maker Premium 2024.

PC - running Windows 11 23H2 Professional on Intel i7-8700K 3.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, RTX 2060 6GB 192-bit GDDR6, 1 x 1Tb Sabrent NVME SSD (OS and programs), 2 x 4TB (Data) internal HDD + 1TB internal SSD (Work disc), + 6 ext backup HDDs.

Laptop - Lenovo Legion 5i Phantom - running Windows 11 23H2 on Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512GB SSD, 43.9 cm screen Full HD 1920 x 1080, Intel UHD 630 iGPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)

Sony FDR-AX53e Video camera, DJI Osmo Action 3 and Sony HDR-AS30V Sports cams.

JerryF-Shaw wrote on 4/9/2021, 4:55 PM

John,

I did not specifically import it to a template or apply one afterwards. I come from the RTFM as a last resort generation (1950s) and only read the manual if something is not intuitive.

I have massaged the Navigation bar links multiple times and may have messed it up. When I saw that I could copy items from the "index.htm" to all pages, I tried that feature with the page links and noticed I had multiple navigation bars. I could remove all of the web links and try to redo them from scratch. BTW, the logo in the upper left is also a link to "index.htm" on every page.

Jerry

JerryF-Shaw wrote on 4/9/2021, 10:22 PM

John,

I just removed anything that I'm aware of that had a link to another page in it and it did not resolve the issue. We still need to include legacy files.

Jerry