What Those Error Messages Mean in Plain English!

If you have done any surfing at all on the Internet you have probably encountered error messages occasionally and wondered whether you have done something wrong.  Here are a couple of the most common and what you can do if you get them.

NO DNS ENTRY FOUND.  There is typically a long pause between the time you press "Enter" and the time this message appears.  Think of it as an Internet busy signal.  Try again if you are trying to get to a popular web site.  If it fails repeatedly, try at another time of day when there is less traffic.  This message also means there really is no such domain name registered on the Net.  (If you absolutely must know whether the domain is valid, you can do a "WHOIS" search at http://rs.internic.net/cgibin/whois

403  FORBIDDEN.  It's shocking the first time you get this, isn't it?  It simply means that you have asked to see a document or page for which you lack privileges.  It may be that you entered something incorrect in typing the URL.  Try again.  If it happens again and you think you should have access to the page, contact the system administrator (sysadmin) and explain what happened.  Ask the Sysadmin to change your "permissions".

404  NOT FOUND.  Probably the most common error message.  It means that the document or page you requested doesn't exist. Perhaps you typed the URL wrong.  URLs are case sensitive and upper and lower case letters must be identical to the file's actual name.  There should be *NO* spaces in a URL. (If yours shows one, perhaps it should have been an underscore.  Try replacing a space with an underscore.)  The document may also have been moved on its site. Try the URL again, leaving off the last section or two of the URL.  That will take you up to a "higher" level in the site where you might get a clue about how to find the page you need.  You will get a 404 error message when an entire site has been closed (though many people put up a "closed" message as a courtesy).  Just keep on surfing.

If you'd like to learn more about error messages and other types of error messages, try this article: http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/web101/

Copyright 1997 by Kaye Vivian ( kvivian@cloud9.net ).  All rights reserved. 
For permission to reprint, contact the author.

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