have to hit refresh to see pages in IE

[Anon]

Hi, all,

I hate to ask stupid newbie questions, but I've searched everywhere and I can't find an answer to this.

I have to repeatedly hit refresh on my browser to see any pages involving PHP4 calling on MySQL. This happens only with IE5, only when I'm viewing pages on my local machine. The page loads immediately, I can see a flash of it, then the browser switches to an error page--"The page cannot be displayed. Cannot find server or DNS error." Hitting refresh will eventually cause the page to stay on the screen.

I figure I must have some setting wrong, either in my Apache server or in the PHP setup. I'm running Win98, and I basically had no idea what I was doing when I installed these things--just followed a set of step-by-step instructions.

Again, this doesn't happen with Netscape, or with the same pages loaded on a remote host. Does anyone have any idea what I should check to straighten this out?

Thanks for any help...

Tracy
[e-mail]

[mithril]

Tracy,

Are you calling the pages in IE using "http://localhost/" or the actually loopback IP "127.0.0.1". If you're using localhost, try calling the ip instead. Win98 doesn't do DNS resolution very well (actually not at all), but it should be able to figure out the loopback. Guess integrating IE really didn't build a better mousetrap🙂 You could also look at your hosts.sam file (c:\windows\hosts.sam) and make sure that the following line exists:

127.0.0.1 localhost

It should, but if it's not there add it and do the 'Doze thing, reboot. It should fix your problem. HTH.

Cheers,

Geoff A. Virgo

[Anon]

Geoff,

Thanks so much for your prompt and knowledgable reply. The only problem was that using 127.0.0.1 didn't make a difference, and the line was already in my hosts.sam file. I'm sure it's all part of an evil Bill Gates plot, so let me know, anyone, if you have any other thoughts.

Nevertheless, Geoff, I'm feeling very fond of you. I really appreciate the help--thanks again.

Tracy

[mithril]

Tracy,

How are you running PHP, as a CGI process or a module? Did you the the ServerName directive in Apache to "127.0.0.1"? The other option is to set ServerName equal to "*". That, although unlikely, may be a cause of your problems. The only other thing I can think of relates to your IE proxy settings. Try looking in

Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings

and make sure that the "Bypass proxy for local addresses" checkbox is checked if you're configured to use a proxy server. If that does work, send me your email and I'll mail you a copy of my httpd.conf which does work for IE (Win98, Apache 1.3.20, PHP 4.0.6 as module). HTH,

Cheers,

Geoff A. Virgo

[Anon]

Thanks, Geoff, you did it!

I actually had changed the ServerName directive in Apache to "127.0.0.1", and it didn't make a difference, so I changed it back to localhost. But I thought about it some more when I got your message, and realized that I hadn't REBOOTED during that particular experiment. I obviously have no concept of when rebooting is called for : )

Anyway, that did it, and I'm VERY grateful to you. Someday I hope to become an expert in something and help poor strugglers on their way, as you've done me : ) Thank you!

Tracy