Custom Page Cannot Be Displayed Error

November 1, 2007 11:39 AM

I know you can create custom error pages (via htaccess) for specific sites but is there a way to create a custom 'Page Cannot Be Displayed' page on the browser side with Explorer? I was thinking it might be nice to include a link to google cache of the page or perhaps automatically redirect Explorer to that page.
posted by linklog to technology (7 comments total)

This is a QA and coding issue. Sure you might be able to parse the page server-side and determine that it won't display on the requesting browser, but how does the code go live in a broken state? Fix the code and this problem goes away.
posted by rhizome at 12:23 PM on November 1, 2007

I'd run your own proxy server and pass all http requests from your computer to it. The proxy would then have it's own server-side 404.

A lot to go through, but I think it's your only option, if I understand your question.
posted by fvox13 at 12:27 PM on November 1, 2007

Rhizome-
Is the 'Page Cannot Be Displayed' page stored within Explorer and is it editable? This isn't a problem with a specific site (that I can fix) it happens now and then when different servers go down. I am just trying to edit that specific error page.
posted by linklog at 12:28 PM on November 1, 2007

Explorer is the windows shell. It doesn't display html.
posted by jeffamaphone at 2:36 PM on November 1, 2007

I am pretty sure that the 404 and related error pages are implemented as part of a DLL in IE. I would bet decent money that there is a hook for you to substitute different behavior but that sounds like a lot of work to go for when a custom bookmarklet might be easier to implement.
posted by mmascolino at 3:03 PM on November 1, 2007

If your circumstances allow you to use Firefox, there's a useful plugin called ErrorZilla that will do what you're asking for.
posted by bcwinters at 4:12 PM on November 1, 2007

You could write a similar extension for IE. Just create a browser helper object that detects the error page and then redirects to whatever you want.
posted by jeffamaphone at 6:30 PM on November 1, 2007