Redirect issues with ASP.NET and Safari

Question

Hey guys,

I'm getting a very weird issue with standard ASP.NET backend code, and the latest version of the Safari browser.

Basically, in the backend ASP.NET code we're using normal response.redirect() calls, and sometimes, in Safari, we'll just get a "server is down" kind of error, as if Safari can't connect to the server.

Unfortunately this error is not consistent, so it's been hard to find a pattern.

Also, one of the developers reported that this was even happening on normal anchors (i.e. no postback event, just a new request).

What could be happening? Anyone experience this before?

I'm guessing it's either something to do with server redirects (but what could affect the browser??) ...or, perhaps, some of our pages are loading weirdly...like, maybe we're handling Page_OnLoad twice or something, and Safari thinks it's in a loop...? but that's not it...

Any ideas?

UPDATE

We put the domain info of the site we were having problems with in our hosts file, and the problem went away.

So, it seems to be that safari is sometimes timing out on the DNS lookup.

Can anyone confirm this? and....is there anything as a web developer that I can do about it?

Answer 1

The best way to deal with issues like this is to install a protocol analyzer like Ethereal or Wireshark and see what is getting passed to the server. Compare the traffic from Safari to that from IE. You can filter the output if you have to run the tool for a period to reproduce the issue.

Answer 2

We put the domain info of the site we were having problems with in our hosts file, and the problem went away.

So, it seems to be that safari is sometimes timing out on the DNS lookup.