What Does That Error Message Really Mean?

Surf the 'Net for about 10 minutes and chances rate veryhigh that you'll encounter an error of one kind oranother.

Whether the error message pops up on your own computer oron a website loaded in your browser, knowing what theerror means can help you solve the problem much fasterand avoid hours of frustration (especially in a situationwhere nothing you do will solve the problem).

The following represent some of the more common errormessages you may encounter while surfing the Internet andwhat (if anything) you can do to correct the situation.

Error: 404 File Not Found

This means the web server cannot find the file or webpage you tried to pull up in your web browser.

Almost nothing you can do will correct this situation.Try hitting your web browser's "Refresh" button to see ifthe page will load. If not, email the website operator tolet them know of the problem and then move on.

Error: 500 Internal Error

This error usually occurs when you fill in a form on aweb page (contact form, shopping cart, feedback form) andclick the submit button.

This means the server or the script handling the form onthe server has a major problem. Again, there's nothingyou can do so just email the website owner and move on.

By the way, resubmitting the form a dozen times, bangingyour hand on the keyboard, and yelling at your monitorwon't fix the problem!

Error: 408 Request Timeout

This error usually occurs when you try to download a hugefile or large web page and, for whatever reason, theconnection times out.

Simply hit your browser's "Refresh" button and it shouldpick up the download again where you left off.

If not, contact the website owner and inform them of theproblem or check back later.

Error: Host Unavailable

Grab a cup of coffee on this one and fall back to readingthe newspaper.

You can try hitting your "Refresh" button a couple oftimes, but, for all intents and purposes, this means theserver has gone down.

Try again in a few minutes on the off-chance you tried toaccess the website just as the owners were restarting theserver or temporarily disconnected it from the Web.

If this doesn't work, the phone rates your best course ofaction to contact the website owner since it's a safe bettheir email won't work either.

Error: Unable to Locate Host

This message usually means one of three things: the webserver is down; your Internet connection is dead; youtyped in the web address incorrectly.

To correct the problem, first try retyping the webaddress into your browser's address bar. If that doesn'twork, try surfing over to another website to make sureyour connection is live.

If you can't load any websites, contact your Internetservice provider (ISP) for technical assistance.

As a general rule, if you encounter an error whilesurfing the web, try these steps in order to fix theproblem:

1. Click your Web browser's "Refresh" button.

2. Verify that you typed in the correct URL (web address)

3. Close down and restart your Web browser completely.

4. Contact the website owner to alert them to the problemor request help.

5. Contact your ISP for help.

(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved
http://www.thenetreporter.com

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist andthe co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach youhow to use fr-e articles to quickly drive thousands oftargeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...

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