Why is Quickpost in Movable Type 3.2 returning a 406 error for text selected on some websites and not others?

December 12, 2007 8:43 AM

When I select text from certain websites, an example would be any article in http://www.nytimes.com, and I click on the Quickpost link in Safari, I recently started receiving the message below:

406 Not Acceptable Not Acceptable An appropriate representation of the requested resource /scgi-bin/mt.cgi could not be found on this server.

Until yesterday, December 11, 2007 this Quickpost link was working properly. Now it returns the 406 error above when I try and select text for a Quickpost from some sites. The Quickpost link works normally when I select text from the http://www.nytimes.com homepage (but not a direct article) or on Google and a few other blogs. What could be causing this error on some websites and not others when I select text and click on the Quickpost link in Safari? I am using Movable Type 3.2 with Safari 3.0.4. I would appreciate any advice anyone could provide. Thanks!
posted by cg2 to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Who is your web host (I host with pair.com; they have been upgrading servers lately in a manner that requires editing Movable Type CGIs with a new path to Perl, for instance)? What's different about the URLs of the pages you're having problems with? Can you post a URL that works and a URL that doesn't work? What was the response from Movable Type's support forums?
posted by bcwinters at 9:57 AM on December 12, 2007

Response by poster: Hi,

Our host is Phillips Data -
http://www.phillipsdata.com

When any text from the urls below is selected and the link to quickpost is clicked, the 406 error *is returned*

- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/world/14climate.html

- http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2007/why-you-should-go-to-the-gel-08-conference/

- http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/737-screens-around-town-sequoia-1-800-got-junk-and-blockbuster#extended

When any text from the urls below is selected and the link to quickpost is clicked, the 406 error is *not returned*

- http://nytimes.com/
(home page works, but direct articles do not)

- http://boingboing.net/

- http://ask.metafilter.com/78446/Why-is-Quickpost-in-Movable-Type-32-returning-a-406-error-for-text-selected-on-some-websites-and-not-others
(this metafilter page works with quickpost!)

- http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/09/o-canada-the-canadia.html

No one has responded to my thread on the Movable Type support forum yet -
http://forums.sixapart.com/index.php?showtopic=64548

Any ideas for why Quickpost is working for some of the links and not others?

Thanks for your help!
posted by cg2 at 8:02 AM on December 13, 2007

Do you have mod_security installed? If you happen to have access to your webserver's error logs, can you check in there to see if there is any more information. I suspect some foul play with mod_security but the error logs would tell for sure.
posted by fooljay at 12:21 AM on January 24, 2008