https - IE cannot display the webpage...

[Poul]

I have a nettalk4 server, that can be started with secured connections (on or off). i run one instance with https off for access inside the LAN  and to service WEB users I run the same exe with Https on).

Both will talk to a number of sql databases and generally work quite well.  However the HTTPS connections occasionally (maybe 1 - 30 requests) will return (Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage) a refresh will often do the trick.

(i test the HTTPS thru both internet and local access and the problem seems to stick with the secured connects ) the servers has been (win2000, vista, windows2008, and windows XP at various times - all behave the same)

I have never seen this hiccup like this on the HTTP only connections.

Any thoughts?
tia poul

[Poul]

and firefox says:

Secure Connection Failed   
SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length.

(Error code: ssl_error_rx_record_too_long)

[Flint G]

I've started receiving this error regularly ... in fact, 100% of the time, even when I revert to code that has not changed in several months (and was working dandy until then). 

Bruce, have you got any insight?  I have NT 4.37 (relatively recent??)

[Bruce]

The exact cause for this message is unknown, however it seems to be solved by not running both the secure, and unsecure objects on the same Window. ie make one window in your app listening on the Secure Port, and another listening on the Unsecure port. (They can share the WebHandler.)

Cheers
Bruce

[Flint G]

I only have one object, listening for secure connections only (see image attached).

Testing web server example 9 works fine, though.  We use legacy templates vs. ABC templates.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Flint G]

Upgrading to 4.49 produced the same behavior as before, unfortunately.  I was hoping for the easy fix 

I think I'm going to try to start from scratch ...

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Flint G]

Hello everyone,

I think I can put this one to rest.  The culprit, you ask?  Skype.

The web server was always being tested (on multiple machines, no less) after Skype had been started.  Quit out of Skype, then restart the web server, and tests should go through just fine.

I suspect, though, that it's not necessarily Skype causing this problem in all cases.  My theory, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that Skype runs as a web service on standard web ports (80/443), listening for the Skype service to send it messages.  This is based on the idea that only one service can attach to the a specified port at any given time.  All subsequent services simply do not attach.

Once I turned Skype off, I was able to access my web server again.  And just as a sanity check, I turned Skype back on ... sure enough, my web server failed to serve.  Now, if only I could understand why running my web server on a virtual machine (which does not have Skype running also failed, things would be peachy.

Hope this helps some other frustrated soul!

Regards,
Flint

P.S. I actually stumbled upon the solution by changing the port number my web server was working on ... since pretty much all of the NetTalk examples use ports other than standard 80/443 ports, and they were working fine.  I normalized my web server to conform to the examples as best I could ... voila.  Then I tried to understand the common denominator on each of our three failing test machines (which was not a variable on a fourth machine on which the web server operated just fine).  Enter Skype.

[Poul]

that's unfortunate it took so long  -  because i am sure i have read someone else resolved a similar problem by turning off skype.

where i first saw this happen the site does use skype but not on the servers where nettalk is running. so skype in itself was a red herring for me. (i think)

The users have stopped complaining (not sure if that means anything) but i still run 2 servers one with only http (LAN) and one with only https(Internet)
and too my knowledge this issue still exists,

Now, if only I could understand why running my web server on a virtual machine (which does not have Skype running also failed, things would be peachy.

Now this i might want to investigate as most of my development, test and implementation servers are virtual, mostly XEN and some vmware.  So my digging  into this problem almost always envolves a virtual machine either on the server or client side or both.

I often wondered if it was related  to how i test/develop - where i am restarting  the nettalk servers, and just refresh the browsers or have many different browse sessions/tabs (Multiple IE, FF, Opera etc) open at the same time often from the same workstation. (which can sometimes create subtlites in behavior).

the lack of others reporting the problem means to me:

• they don't use https,
• envrionmental /configuration issues
• or (gasp) a bug i introduced
• or its bruces fault<g>

glad you found a solution for your production server.