If someone can resolve this you'll be rewarded

[questfar]

Here is the problem.

It happens only in IE 6 or 7, and it is inconsistent across different pc's. I last tested across 2 different pc's both with identical os's and ie versions and settings, and both gave me different outcomes.

I have a play page that simulates a raffle. When a user clicks the "buy it" button, the following happens

1. The "My Number" and "Winning Number" are cleared out.
2. a url is launched in an invisible iFrame, which triggers a process on the server.
3. the server returns info and updates "My Number" and "Winning Number"

This works always in FireFox and sometimes fails on IE6 and IE7. When it works on IE 6 and 7, it always works. When it fails , it always fails. It depends on the pc.

When it fails, it fails on the 2nd time you click "Buy It" and every time afterward. The first time you enter the page and "Buy It", it succeeds. When it fails, only the "Winning Number" is cleared and the url to trigger the process on the server never executes.
If you reload the page, it works again.

If someone can shed some light on this, I will reward you!


http:\\www.instantraffle.com\wwrplay.nsf\play?readform

Username: Raffle Man
PW: 12345

Thanks

[tomcatuk]

*coughs* posting the link with forward slashes rather than backslashes may help

Instant Raffle

Sorry to say, I've had a go logging in with the testing ID you posted and I can't seem to get anything on the page to work in FF or IE7.

[kgun]

If that did not help, here is my proposal.

Originally Posted by questfar

Here is the problem.

It happens only in IE 6 or 7, and it is inconsistent across different pc's. I last tested across 2 different pc's both with identical os's and ie versions and settings, and both gave me different outcomes.

My bolding.

Identical is a very strong word. In mathematical terms that is an isomorphism, a very strong concept.

"If there exists an isomorphism between two structures, we call the two structures isomorphic. In a certain sense, isomorphic structures are structurally identical, if you choose to ignore finer-grained differences that may arise from how they are defined".

Especially I wounder about the settings in IE. There are a lot of options on different setting pages that need to be identical.

Wolfram Mathworld about Isomorphism.

There is a way to test it. Format a new computer and dump the first computer's harddisks (via a network it is done in minutes) to the new computer and try.

Try what you have described above.

Then delete and reinstall IE (may be also the OS) and retry.

Reformat the computer and repeat the experiment on the second computer.

[dann]

Originally Posted by tomcatuk

I can't seem to get anything on the page to work in FF or IE7.

Ditto. Needs some serious work.

[timmathews.com]

Originally Posted by tomcatuk

*coughs* posting the link with forward slashes rather than backslashes may help

Instant Raffle

Sorry to say, I've had a go logging in with the testing ID you posted and I can't seem to get anything on the page to work in FF or IE7.

LMAO

I have an issue at one of my offices as well... One of my employees still can't seem to understand the difference from a backslash and a forwardslash.
And people wonder why it is called "dope".

[timmathews.com]

Originally Posted by kgun

If that did not help, here is my proposal.


My bolding.

Identical is a very strong word. In mathematical terms that is an isomorphism, a very strong concept.

"If there exists an isomorphism between two structures, we call the two structures isomorphic. In a certain sense, isomorphic structures are structurally identical, if you choose to ignore finer-grained differences that may arise from how they are defined".

Especially I wounder about the settings in IE. There are a lot of options on different setting pages that need to be identical.

Wolfram Mathworld about Isomorphism.

There is a way to test it. Format a new computer and dump the first computer's harddisks (via a network it is done in minutes) to the new computer and try.

Try what you have described above.

Then delete and reinstall IE (may be also the OS) and retry.

Reformat the computer and repeat the experiment on the second computer.

Yeah, I'll bet that confused him. Nice one Kgun.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by timmathews.com

LMAO

I have an issue at one of my offices as well... One of my employees still can't seem to understand the difference from a backslash and a forwardslash.
And people wonder why it is called "dope".

Is that the same on an Unix and a Windows (/ Apache) platform?

Is / or \ the root of an XML XPath query?

Now, I am more confused, but on a higher level? Did that solve the problem?

P.S.

"Especially I wounder about the settings in IE. There are a lot of options on different setting pages that need to be identical".

It should be wonder, even if the (seemingly) truth may hurt sometimes.

Final question: Why is the devil always in the details

[tomcatuk]

Yikes Kgun - he'll be quite a while going though all that lot, and if he's not installed OS's much before it could end up quite a frustrating way to test his site - or did I miss the irony

[kgun]

Mixing = with == can mean a program that crashes at run time (because of boundary conditions in C inspired languages / scripts like C++, C#, Java, PHP, Perl Etc.)

Testing with the assignment operator =, when the identity operator == should be used, will compile wonderful in most cases, but may end in a catastrophe.

But an identical computer is also a very unprecise term. Identical in what terms? Identical hardware, Software, Connection to the internet (IP) etc.

Did you know the following:
Buy two "identical" computers from the same production line and supply it with identical "software".

Then simulate a chaotic process on the same program on the two "identical" computers and start both processes in the same point. Let it be a program that draws a fractal image from a chaotic process. Go for lunch and come back. The pictures looked identical on the first iterations, but when you come back from lunch, the two pictures are very different. Mathematical chaos / fractals are beautiful, real life not.

Lord (Robert) May of Oxford

While professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton (see biograph), was the first to discover this effect.

The problem is that a computer has final state and for that reason final precison, while some mathematical problems need infinite precision and can not be solved numerically on a computer, but analytically on paper.

But, hopefully, that is not his problem. Did that confuse even more? But remember that story when somebody try to prove a mathematical problem to you on a computer or an other final state medium.

No, it was not an irony, since I personally see no better way to test the problem.

I am 80 % sure that the problems is IE / browser settings.

But since there are 20 % left to 100 % certainty, and I wanted the reward, I gave the answer in my first post.

If I win, I am looking forward to the reward. The favourite wish is a week's free visit to Hawaii for two persons from Norway of course.
I could arrange a seminar there on problems with different browsers, operating systems and the interpretations of identical in different settings. What is the daily and the mathematical meaning of structural stability?

So a simpler solution is, delete IE / the browsers on both computers and reinstall with the same options.

What is indentical in the digital space? I am sure that there is a bug, so identical is a concept that should be used carefully, even by mathematicians, especially those operating in numerical analysis departments.

Note:
http:\\www.instantraffle.com\wwrplay.nsf\play?readform

"correctly" redirects to

Instant Raffle where the absolute path / (in XPath notation) is broken into relative paths by the / operator.

since WPW is most probably hosted on a (Windows / Linux) Apache web server.

[timmathews.com]

ROFL.
Kgun, you are truly one of a kind mate!

[wige]

Originally Posted by kgun

Final question: Why is the devil always in the details

Sorry - I have to respond to that one. Everyone always says the devil is in the details, but I haven't seen it. I always seem to find the devil in the blindingly obvious. I mean, if you get mugged, and the mugger shoots you, thats bad... obviously the devil's influence. It is also not a detail, it's pretty darn obvious. Now if the bullet misses your heart by an inch, thats good, not the devil... but certainly a detail.

[kgun]

<was this off topic>
Yet another example. Very important if you work with streambased XML parsers in PHP.

Line feed:
Windows: \r\n
Unix: \n

\r\n should be normalized to \n, but who knows where the .?. is.

In addition there are differences for PHP version 4.x and 5.x.

So if you stream data using some of the XML push og pull parses in PHP don't expect identical output. Yet another problem if you work with XML that is a very important part of Web 2.0 applications, e.g. based on AJAX is encoding. Don't expect the same result if you upgrade from PHP 4.x to 5.x. As a rule, always declare your encoding at the start of the document. That can save you a lot of trouble. And you should know about external and internal encoding in XML and the encoding and decoding functions that comes with external libraries like libxml2.

There is an excellent book that explains this:
Robert Richards (2006) "Pro PHP XML and Web Services."

Especially chapter 8. Hereby warmly recommended.

If you ever want to use XML, reading this book before you start, can save you days and hours of problems.

Note Robert Richards is a PHP insider and has written XML parsers like the XMLReader and XMLWriter. He has also contibuted code to the DOM extension for PHP 5.

P.S. if you buy that book and it is identical to mine, note what is written on page 301. The problem may not even be Unix, Windows, PHP or the parser but spaghetti coding - you code wrong and get what you code.

Related posts:

spaghetti kgun site:www.webproworld.com

The only standard on WWW is that there is no universally accepted standard. Se the second link in my signature for more resources.

</was this off topic>

[kgun]

Originally Posted by wige

Sorry - I have to respond to that one. Everyone always says the devil is in the details, but I haven't seen it. I always seem to find the devil in the blindingly obvious. I mean, if you get mugged, and the mugger shoots you, thats bad... obviously the devil's influence. It is also not a detail, it's pretty darn obvious. Now if the bullet misses your heart by an inch, thats good, not the devil... but certainly a detail.

I liked that.

Norwegian: "Hvorfor henge seg i detaljer når der er så mange trær?"

Translated to English: "Why hang oneself in details, when there are so many trees?"

But sometimes, I do not see the forest, because there are so many trees, read different standards or lack thereoff