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Real hackers use AOL to do their DOS's.

Ever since discovering tabbed browsing with Opera 5, I became a very patient Internet user. In some instances I keep a page loading for the entire 12 hour work week, while working in other tabs on other things. I see how the problem of endlessly looping requests could be much more common, regardless of whether you use an older AOL version or not.

Clearly there are terrorists living in Ohio! Alert DHS!

The design of favicon.ico is quite the WTF all by itself.

Jozef:

Ever since discovering tabbed browsing with Opera 5, I became a very patient Internet user. In some instances I keep a page loading for the entire 12 hour work week

12-hour work week? Wow. I think I want your job. How much does it pay?

That was spectacular! Infinite redirects simply because of favicon. Who would've thought of that one.

Is there Something in the first log entry where the favicon is requested that explains the redirection? I can't see something there..

The real WTF is that the family in Ohio was using AOL, and an older version at that. They must be masochists.

Anonymouse:

Is there Something in the first log entry where the favicon is requested that explains the redirection? I can't see something there..

It probably was redirecting to a custom error page.

Mattkins:

The real WTF is that the family in Ohio was using AOL, and an older version at that. They must be masochists.

You better believe it!

No, the real WTF is redirect pages in the first place.
What's so wrong with a 404 error?

I'm not exactly an IIS expert, but I'm having difficulty in understanding why a single users browser stuck in an infinite redirect loop would be enough to cause the server to run out of memory in the first place.

jgayhart:

Anonymouse:

Is there Something in the first log entry where the favicon is requested that explains the redirection? I can't see something there..

It probably was redirecting to a custom error page.

But shouldn't that happen once? Unless the error page was missing, so redirecting to the custom error page, which was missing...

Thats AOL for ya, destroying websites one icon at a time.

What.. noone? Ok, I guess I'll have to say it.

The real WTF is AOL.

There.

66.77.93.50 ?

SuperousOxide:

But shouldn't that happen once? Unless the error page was missing, so redirecting to the custom error page, which was missing...

And when the browser got that page it then requested the favicon so it could display it with the page. Which is why the browser failed to notice the loop. Only give custom error pages for real pages not the furniture.

fennec:

Jozef:

Ever since discovering tabbed browsing with Opera 5, I became a very patient Internet user. In some instances I keep a page loading for the entire 12 hour work week

12-hour work week? Wow. I think I want your job. How much does it pay?

Sorry, work day :P I was talking to my boss while typing the previous post...

Mattkins:

The real WTF is that thee family lived in Ohio

There. Fixed that for you.

Anonymouse:

Is there Something in the first log entry where the favicon is requested that explains the redirection? I can't see something there..

It can be a bit hard to spot, but the key point is the number 302, which is the HTTP/1.x status code "302 Found" (originally "302 Moved Temporarily") - web servers tend to return that code (instead of the proper 303 or 307) when processing a dynamic redirect.

Jason:

Mattkins:

The real WTF is that the family lived in Ohio.

There. Fixed that for you.

There. Fixed that for you.

It's not clear to me if there were 2 million active connections to SQL Server or just 2 million sessions on the web app, but anyway, if it's to SQL Server, two words: CONNECTION POOL.

Every so often, Bob B. observed that his company's e-commerce site would crash-hard.

It's always fun when em dashes get turned into plain old hyphens.

I hate those little favicon's! I've begun adding them to most of my clients' sites to remove the clutter from the log files showing file not found when the browser requested it.

I don't really think it's the answer, Not Dorothy. The browser doesn't have to display that page, so there's no need to download the favicon. Moreover, the article only mentions favicon ONCE (at the very beginning of the endless loop). So where is that freaking loop ? Someone mentioned the 302 (Found), but that's it, I don't really get it.

CynicalTyler:

Jason:

Mattkins:

The real WTF is Ohio.

There. Fixed that for you.

There. Fixed that for you.

There. Fixed that for you.

criticman:

I hate those little favicon's! I've begun adding them to most of my clients' sites to remove the clutter from the log files showing file not found when the browser requested it.

$ ls -l favicon.ico
ls: favicon.ico: No such file or directory
$ touch favicon.ico
$ ls -l favicon.ico
-rw-r--r-- 1 dpm dpm 0 Feb 7 08:49 favicon.ico
$

Problem solved!

Imagine the gl_tail flow...

The real fix would have been to somehow tweak the error page to make any AOL browser crash and never come back alive.

CAPTCHA : ingenium

Wait... when did Ohio get internet?

Glad to see the CAPTCHA is unique! That is what it was for my first post above.

Now it is different...hmm, I wonder how many options there are?

CAPTCHA: vereor

sweavo:

Wait... when did Ohio get internet?

What is an "Ohio"?

mauhiz:

The real fix would have been to somehow tweak the error page to make any AOL browser crash and never come back alive.

On most versions of AOL this can be done by displaying any web page.

Micha:

I don't really think it's the answer, Not Dorothy. The browser doesn't have to display that page, so there's no need to download the favicon. Moreover, the article only mentions favicon ONCE (at the very beginning of the endless loop). So where is that freaking loop ? Someone mentioned the 302 (Found), but that's it, I don't really get it.

You have a point; after all, why would the browser need to display an error page if it can't find a favicon it's trying to update for a bookmark?
I imagine the explanation is there that there was an AOL browser that actually behaved this way, which I can buy AOL doing, or that we're looking at one of those cases where Alex "enhances" the story to the point where it doesn't make sense anymore.

DeLos:

sweavo:

Wait... when did Ohio get internet?

What is an "Ohio"?

I believe it means "Hello" in Japanese.

RandomWTF:

I'm not exactly an IIS expert, but I'm having difficulty in understanding why a single users browser stuck in an infinite redirect loop would be enough to cause the server to run out of memory in the first place.

It was mentioned in the article that each request started a _new_ session, every session was left unclosed.

The goggles! They do nothing!

Seriously, these colors are awful. How long are you going to subject us to these?

Jozef:

fennec:

Jozef:

Ever since discovering tabbed browsing with Opera 5, I became a very patient Internet user. In some instances I keep a page loading for the entire 12 hour work week

12-hour work week? Wow. I think I want your job. How much does it pay?

Sorry, work day :P I was talking to my boss while typing the previous post...

Wow, your job suddenly got a lot worse ;)

Someone You Know:

Micha:

So where is that freaking loop ? Someone mentioned the 302 (Found), but that's it, I don't really get it.

You have a point; after all, why would the browser need to display an error page if it can't find a favicon it's trying to update for a bookmark?

It's really very simple.

The browser requests the resource at foo.com/favicon.ico.
The server responds with a 302 response, which means "That thing you asked for is temporarily over here -> /error.aspx".
The new URL is for a custom error page, but THE BROWSER DOESN'T KNOW THAT, because the server hasn't told it there's an error. It has just told it that the resource has moved.
So the browser requests foo.com/error.aspx as the URL of the favicon instead, like it has been told.
The server opens a new session and fails, and issues another 302 redirect saying "That thing you asked for is temporarily over here -> /access?action=forward&uri=%2Ferror.aspx"
Again, the browser doesn't know that's an error page, so it dutifully follows the instructions the server has given it. And by so doing, another session is created, and the infinite loop begins.

The only fault of the browser is that arguably, it should limit the number of successive 302 redirects it will follow for a given resource being requested, and eventually give up. However, the standard (RFC1945) doesn't say anything about such a limit being required, or even desirable.

So although everybody loves to hate on AOL, in this case the fault is absolutely entirely with the server and application.

I've seen similar things myself. I've browsed to web sites that try to start a session, then fail because I have cookies disabled by default, so they redirect me back to the page to start a session, and so on forever. I tend to leave pages like that open in another tab for a few hours in the hope that the fucktards running the site will notice the problem.

Botzinger Gulm:

CynicalTyler:

Jason:

Mattkins:

There. Fixed that for you.

There. Fixed that for you.

There. Fixed that for you.

There. Fixed that for you.

There. Fixed that for you.

Outlaw Programmer:

I call shenanigans. Management would have just told the developer to schedule a task that restarts the 2 services every night. At the places where I've worked, any bug that has a workaround never gets fixed; the workaround just gets added to the user manual!

From the description it doesn't sound like that would have fixed the bug.

Ah ASP. PHP or mod_rewrite would automatically kill these loops after a set number of redirects.

Outlaw Programmer:

I call shenanigans. Management would have just told the developer to schedule a task that restarts the 2 services every night. At the places where I've worked, any bug that has a workaround never gets fixed; the workaround just gets added to the user manual!

No offense to the original poster, but what the smeg is so awesome about this post that it got bumped up to almighty Featured status?

Seraph:

Outlaw Programmer:

I call shenanigans. Management would have just told the developer to schedule a task that restarts the 2 services every night. At the places where I've worked, any bug that has a workaround never gets fixed; the workaround just gets added to the user manual!

From the description it doesn't sound like that would have fixed the bug.

I agree. And thats my problem with the current WTF, the solution is another WTF!, the problem is just rub under the carpet with a touch favicon.ico, but still here, waiting to happend again.

I can just imagine that happening at my workplace and it not being fixed for months.. Its always the small things that cause the big problems.

Zylon:

Outlaw Programmer:

I call shenanigans. Management would have just told the developer to schedule a task that restarts the 2 services every night. At the places where I've worked, any bug that has a workaround never gets fixed; the workaround just gets added to the user manual!

No offense to the original poster, but what the smeg is so awesome about this post that it got bumped up to almighty Featured status?

Every now and then the gods bless a mortal for no apparent reason. It's to keep them mysterious so that we don't get all uppity.

66.77.93.50 doesn't resolve to a DNS entry. What's really going on here?

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