Stop PageBlaster cache creation if module error occurs

Rate this topic:

Please Register to post a reply. Another benefit of registration is the ability to subscribe to and recieve notifications of new posts.

Author

Messages

grant

Posts:7

02/19/2008 11:39 PM
Hi all I’ve discovered a problem with Page Blaster which I hope someone has come across before and, more importantly, that someone has the solution! Page Blaster creates cached versions of pages regardless of whether any of the modules on the page have errors. The problem with this is that if a module happens to error on the request that builds the Page Blaster cache file, that error will be displayed to all subsequent requests until the Page Blaster cache is cleared. Now the probability of such a scenario may seem small, but it has been observed. A search of the Snapsis support forums and Google has failed to find any question regarding this behaviour. Reading the Page Blaster documentation hasn’t helped either – there doesn’t appear to be a way to set up a rule to search for certain text in the page as a trigger to not cache the output. Any thoughts on how to stop this from happening? Thanks for any help.

John Mitchell
Posts:2779

02/20/2008 9:26 AM
Hi Grant, I haven't yet had anyone run into this problem (at least no one has brought it to my attention), but it may be beneficial to allow you to disable cache if there is an error. Then again, if you are having an error I'm not sure why you would not want to cache it to keep the error from having to be generated over and over again, unless maybe it is an intermittent error. The flip side of this is that if you have a module that is getting intermittent errors then if you cache a good page you won't have to worry about the error until the cache clears. I guess having a rule to make sure you keep trying until you get a good one may be what you are looking for. I'll add the ability to stop caching based on page output in the next version which is currently in beta . Also keep in mind that you can manually clear the cache by holding CTRL and refreshing in Internet Explorer or holding SHIFT and refreshing in FireFox.

grant

Posts:7

02/20/2008 5:08 PM
Hi John Thanks for the reply. I agree with you on the benefits of caching a good page that does have occasional errors. In addition to a setting to simply not cache when an error occurs, perhaps you could also consider an option to detect when a module error has occurred and, if possible, attempt n times (configurable) to rebuild the page before abandoning the cache process and rendering the page with the error. You wouldn't want the process to get into an endless loop when an error persists. Just a thought. Do you happen to have an ETA on the next version? Regards Grant

John Mitchell
Posts:2779

02/20/2008 5:28 PM
I don't think PageBlaster should be directly coded to try and over-come intermittent errors in modules. With the new version you could set a cookie using a rule and accomplish that with a redirect in the same rule, then check the cookie, but I don't have a way to increment values in the cookie yet, and that may be even more error prone. The new version is available if you want to test it out. I'll just need to add this new feature in first which I could do in the next 24 hours.

grant

Posts:7

02/20/2008 5:37 PM
Fair enough. As for the new version, you indicated it's in beta. My question on its eta was in terms of it being ready for a production environment as we're looking at a launch date very soon. I'll definitely grab the new beta version once you've added the new feature to test it in our staging environment. Thanks Grant

John Mitchell
Posts:2779

02/20/2008 5:46 PM
I'm using the latest build on this site and haven't seen any show stoppers, but if you can try it out in your staging first that would be best. I'll get this added and send it to you.

grant

Posts:7

02/21/2008 7:36 PM
Hi John Just wondering if you have an updated eta on the new feature? Thanks Grant

John Mitchell
Posts:2779

02/21/2008 10:57 PM
I just finished testing it here on my site. I'll package it up and get it to you shortly. It automatically bypasses caching for any response that does not have a status of 200, which should take care of the issue you are having. You'll probably want to get up to speed on some of the new features also, because there are several more optimizations that you can do now. The link for getting up to speed on the beta testing will be in the e-mail that I send.

Please Register to post a reply. Another benefit of registration is the ability to subscribe to and recieve notifications of new posts.

Forums >Snapsis Product Support >PageBlaster > Stop PageBlaster cache creation if module error occurs