Posted by Toda-San on 09/23/22 11:41

This doesn't sound like a cache problem, and I fear you may waste
considerable time looking there. I could be wrong, of course. But if a
browser misses (for whatever reason) a cached page, then it goes online
to re-load from the originating site. Only if it then can't find that
page would you get the 404. And of course, HTTPS pages are never
cached/should never be cached.

My first impression would be a cookie problem. (insert dissertation
about stateful/stateless connections and the requirement for cookies)
(insert dissertation/lecture that cookies are NOT evil, but some
journalists will say anything for a story.) I would check the machine
to see if cookies are disabled or disabled wrongly. (Ex: I agree with
disabling cookies that are sent to other than the originating site.)
My thinking is that this will be a more fruitful area of investigation.

Also grab your laptop and hook it to their connection to see if YOU can
go back to a page they cannot. It COULD be something funky with the ISP
"helpfully" caching pages for you; and such a test would quickly rule
out that problem. Come to think, do that anyway. You need to isolate
the fault to this side of the wall or that side of the wall. Speaking
of which, do try it on their machine with whatever firewall they are
using shut off. (Insert true confession of abiding fear of/hatred for
Wintel software firewalls)

And keep saying to yourself, "FIPs are fun!", maybe you'll actually
believe it someday. Best of luck!


Tricky Dicky wrote:
> Never heard of this one before
>
> A friend is using IE on a TalkTalk broadband connection and he can browse to
> a website quite easily but if he presses the back button to go back to a
> page he gets the "not found" error and even pressing refresh does not bring
> back the page back. This is happening with regular websites not just secure
> ones where timeouts could be occuring
>
> I am thinking a cache problem but any suggestions on where to look?
>
> Tricky

[Back to original message]