IE hides small error messages

So here goes the killer one that inspired me to start this blog.

While browsing Rediff.com, I noticed an error page. On seeing the source I saw this comment:

- Unfortunately, Microsoft has added a clever new
- "feature" to Internet Explorer. If the text in
- an error's message is "too small", specifically
- less than 512 bytes, Internet Explorer returns
- its own error message. Yes, you can turn that
- off, but *surprise* it's pretty tricky to find
- buried as a switch called "smart error
- messages" That means, of course, that many of
- Resin's error messages are censored by default.
- And, of course, you'll be shocked to learn that
- IIS always returns error messages that are long
- enough to make Internet Explorer happy. The
- workaround is pretty simple: pad the error
- message with a big comment to push it over the
- five hundred and twelve byte minimum. Of course,
- that's exactly what you're reading right now.


M$ talks about it here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294807

Several frequently-seen status codes have "friendly" error messages that Internet Explorer 5.x displays and that effectively mask the actual text message that the server sends. However, these "friendly" error messages are only displayed if the response that is sent to the client is less than a specified threshold. For example, to see the exact text of an HTTP 500 response, the content length must be greater than or equal to 512 bytes.


Google for "IE friendly error messages" and you'll get many people cribbing about it. And they call it friendly! Why dont they write out the whole website, why bother the webmaster?

What to say, I am speachless! They didnt even spare error messages!