Unknown problem

[Joe]

Hi All!

We're seeing a very strange problem with our web site. Users seem to be
getting directed to the home page for an unknown reason.

Here's what happens:
A user goes to the site.
Picks a card to send by clicking a link, goes to the next page
Fills in their information and goes to the next page. Prior to going to the
next page an item is put in the session.
They preview and click continue. This brings them to the next page.
This page reads the items from the session. It looks like they get sent to
this page and redirected to the home page. I don't think the entire page
even loads. I also don't think that it gets to the point where the item in
session gets accessed.
We had a page prior to this one that didn't access the session at all. The
users were getting bounced to the home page from that page so we removed it
thinking it was causing the problem.

It's almost like they can only go so far.

This is happening to about 90% of our users. We've tested the site many
times on about 15 computers and cannot reproduce the problem. We've tried
IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and Netscape.

It also doesn't look like they wait any length of time before continuing so
I don't think the session is timing out.

Any ideas?

-Joe

 

[Joe]

Hi Mark,

There is generic exception handling but that directs them to a page called
oops. I don't see this page coming up in the logs.

The only place we clear the Session if after a transaction has completed.
That page never comes up.

It seems most people are using IE 6.

Since we don't receive any feedback from the users we have no idea what
there settings are or if they're even getting a error message.

I'm going to add some more logging to see how far they get on the page
before they get kicked to the home page.

Is there anything else that could cause a session to get lost or restarted?

-Joe

 

[Joe]

The way we know there is a problem is because just about everyone gets to
the same point and then sent to the home page. This wouldn't make any sense.

By looking at the logs we've even seen people try more then once and they
always end up back at the home page from the same point as before.

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi Joe,

My Name is Allen Chen. It's my pleasure to work with you on this issue.

Quote from Joe ==================================================
The way we know there is a problem is because just about everyone gets to
the same point and then sent to the home page. This wouldn't make any sense.

By looking at the logs we've even seen people try more then once and they
always end up back at the home page from the same point as before.
==================================================

Is my understanding correct that you got the assumption that there's
something wrong on your site by viewing the logs? If so could you provide
the following information first?

1. Are you viewing the IIS log or using your own custom log?
2. If you try the normal steps is the log the same as the abnormal one? If
not could you provide the two different logs? In addition, could you check
the other 10% log entries to see if they are the same as those of the
normal log?
3. Is it an Internet web site? If so could you provide a link for me to
access?
4. Some of your code snippet is appreciated.

At last, please make sure you're viewing the logs for a specific user. If
more than one user are accessing your site the sequence of the log entries
may not be the same as those in a single user scenario.

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support

Delighting our customers is our #1 priority. We welcome your comments and
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provided. You can send feedback directly to my manager at:
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[Joe]

Hi Allen,

I'm looking at both the IIS logs and our own logs. In the IIS logs I'm
following the IP address to "make sure" it's the same user. We also write to
a simple sql table some basic information which I can track.

So far it seems most of the users are using IE 6. This is a mix of people
that do go completely through and some that do not.

I don't know what code you want.

-Joe

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi joe,

Thanks for your update. Could you answer the following three questions?

1. Is my understanding correct that you got the assumption that
there's
something wrong on your site by viewing the logs?

2. If you try the normal steps is the log the same as the abnormal one? If
not could you provide the two different logs? In addition, could you check
the other 10% log entries to see if they are the same as those of the
normal log?

3. Is it an Internet web site? If so could you provide a link for me to
access? (To see if there's any bad design that mislead the users)

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Community Support

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi Joe,

Do you have any progress on this issue? Your answers to my questions are
important for me to come up with a good way to investigate this issue. So
could please answer these questions so that we can work together to see
what the problem is?


Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support

 

[Joe]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you.
To answer your questions:
1. Yes we look at the logs and track the progress of a user. It seems that
when the page goes to read back a value from the session that they get an
issue and get kicked to the home page. Again this doesn't happen to everyone
but it seems to happen to most.

2. The only difference in the log is that when it works the users do not get
kicked to the home page. They can complete their action. In the case where
it fails the user gets kicked to the home page as if the session is being
reset.

3. I can give you the URL privately.

Thanks and again I'm sorry for the very long delay.

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your update. You can email me to provide the working,
non-working logs and the URL to your site. If it's possible you'd better
provide a URL that is only known by you and me so that you can look at the
log to easily track my actions (maybe you can copy your site to a
subdirectory of your site with a strange name).

My email is (e-mail address removed) update here after sending the
email in case I missed it.

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support

 

[Allen Chen [MSFT]]

Hi Joe,

Did you send the email to me?

Regards,
Allen Chen
Microsoft Online Support