Error Handling

[Steve James]

We've been using Ebase for several years and many of our form writers are not traditional web developers. We have around 300 forms on our system and many forms did not have a script on the form on error event (loads of reasons for this situation).

We were therefore unaware of any failures unless users contact us. The user was passed to the standard ufs_error_message page.

Simple solution, add a redirect js to ufs_error_message.

Code: Select all

<script>
	var referrer = document.referrer;
	window.location = '/ufs/errortrap.jsp?r=' + referrer;
</script>

Once this was in place we were amazed the number of failures we were getting because users had bookmarked pages from form submissions prior to 4.5 (ie better Ebase bookmarking). We get 20-30 old bookmark attempts a day. We think this is likely to occur for some time to come.

The redirect page brands the error page and suggests the issue is to do with an old book mark.

In the background, if the issue is not a bookmark one (check of referrer), it sends a simple email to form writers prompting them to check the logs and resolve issues.
We are very happy that we have a very low level of issue but we do occasionally get simple problems which are easily resolved. Whilst fixing the issues the form writer adds scripts to the form on error event and this helps us prioritise issues.

Using this approach we've found 2 Ebase bugs. These bugs were found on forms which already had scripts the form on error event.
As they were Ebase bugs the form's on error event was not being called.

Of course Ebase were their normal great selves and quickly confirmed how the situation could arise and what can be done as a workaround.

Thanks