I am trying to create a progress bar, using a combination of server side php and client side javascript, to display the software installation status on our appliances. Unfortunately the web server pacakge needs to be taken down, upgraded, brought back up.
If I use a straight refresh, and it refreshes while apache is down, I get a blank page/server error page, and the refresh goes away. To combat this I decide to use a page with two frames--one at 100% size, and another that is "hidden" from view. The parent frame has a simple JavaScript that reloads the hidden frame and sets a timer to do it again. The hidden frame calculates the installed packages, the remaining packages, and an estimated time. This is all spewed back to the browser encased in JS that writes it into the main page.
This all works fine in both Mozilla and IE.
That is until the server goes down. Mozilla happily keeps on trying the page every time the timer goes off. IE on the other hand gets the server not found error and pukes. The problem lies in the "security patch" for cross frame scripting (found here) that basically disallows frames to control other frames if they are in different domains.
Apparently the server not found error is "served" from localhost, thus changing the domain of the hidden frame. Once I hit the downed apache and get the error, I IE throws an "Access is Denied" JavaScript error every time the timer goes off and the page reloads.
I've heard rumors that there is a way to trick IE and allow this to happen, without having to change browser security settings, but haven't been able to find anything in about 4 hours of digging.
ARGH!
I hear that. I have problems with pages on a constant meta refresh where I know the server is okay, and the IE just bugs out with that error message. I see it on our internal sites, and also if you leave a system at google news overnight.
Microsoft should do something so that if a page metarefreshes, and it doesn't come up, its errors don't stop the attempted re-refresh, so it can recover.