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It seems that due to XP SP2's MIME type restrictions, when using Internet Explorer 6 SP2 to validate documents, it will spit out this error: ----------------------------------- Sorry, I am unable to validate this document because its content type is text/plain, which is not currently supported by this service. The Content-Type field is sent by your web server (or web browser if you use the file upload interface) and depends on its configuration. Commonly, web servers will have a mapping of filename extensions (such as ".html") to MIME Content-Type values (such as text/html). That you recieved this message can mean that your server is not configured correctly, that your file does not have the correct filename extension, or that you are attempting to validate a file type that we do not support yet. In the latter case you should let us know that you need us to support that content type (please include all relevant details, including the URL to the standards document defining the content type) using the instructions on the Feedback Page. ---------------------------------- I have asked my friend to test out, and he is using Windows XP SP2 as well. He reports the same problem. Meanwhile, using Mozilla Firefox and Opera doesn't result in any problem. Do you guys experience this problem as well? It's a major blocker... Also, on another note, I hope PHP files can be validated soon as well.
This has been mentioned a few times, I'm not sure if there are other instances floating around Bugzilla. The problem is with Windows, not with the Validator so I think this bug in invalid, or possibly one which should be resolved with a specific mention of the Windows issue in the error message. I came across http://www.lachy.id.au/blogs/log/2004/09/validating-xhtml-with-ie-using-file on USENET which looks like a possible fix for Windows. (I haven't tested it as I do not have easy access to a copy of Microsoft Windows). As for PHP files, these cannot be validated as they are program source code and not markup - as such the concept of validation is meaningless when applied to PHP.
This should be solved through better UI that makes it easy to use the file upload feature in case of browsers sending an unexpected MIME type or no MIME type at all.
I would not want to add a "force content-type" option for the sole purpose of accomodating a borken browser, but that could be of interest to compare e.g files served as text/html and application/ xhtml+xml. I'd wait until the IE bug is acknowledged, or, better, fixed in some development version, before adding such an option, though...
We'll need to ability to set the Content-Type for fragment validation in any case, and we should be able to treat this similarly to other widgets (DOCTYPE, Charset) by issuing a warning on mismatches and other suboptimal behaviour. I'm somwhat ambivalent about how and if we should react specificly to XPSP2; this is a long standing problem, but XPSP2 may exacerbate it sufficiently for us to react. I wonder if we should issue a note in the news section on :80 that explains the situation with XPSP2 and mentions that we haven't decided what to do about it yet. Adding blocker on Bug #856 and targetting 0.7.0; until we figure out the "what", "if", and "when" of it.
Suggested fix: the error message should point to the fix David mentioned (which has been floating around since they inflicted SP2 on us). "If you are using MSIE with XP SP2, there is a fix at .... . Alternatively, use a browser with better standards support ...."
*** Bug 903 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 907 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 911 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 914 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 936 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 924 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 951 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This bug has been around for 3 months.The suggestion to mention the lachy site is a good one. Failing that, at least acknowledge in the error message that there is a problem with IE sp2. Doing so would at least save the increasing number of Windows XP SP2 users that run into it, the hassle of digging around for the answer, and those that don't dig, from drawing the incorrect conclusion that the W3C's validator doesn't work.
*** Bug 1010 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 1013 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Rather than implementing a Content-Type override, why can't the http-equiv tag be properly recognized? That would seem to be an obvious solution.
That would require to look for <meta> elements in plain text documents, that is not exactly technically sound.
I realize the Content-Type header is more useful for specifying a character encoding, but the point is if a user uploads a perfectly valid HTML file and it does not get validated, then it could be argued the Validator is broken, and not the browser.
Well, I am a little perplexed as to the concern for looking for a meta statement. If someone updates a plain text file to be validated by a tool that is expecting either HTML or XHTML, finding a META statement in there, or for that matter simply treating the file as markup, isn't going to do any real harm. I assume that a validator is written to be prepared for all sorts of incorrect markup. Why not just process the file as if it were xml or html, give a warning about the content-type, and if suitable initial markup isn't found within a reasonable # of lines, bail out, otherwise continue as if the content -type were specified? I am concerned that since this has been around for several months, users that run into this a) are going off to use other validators, or of more concern b) people will opt to simply not validate and as a result many more ill-formed pages are being added to the web.
...or c) ask their vendor to fix bugs in their software or d) choose to use a more standards compliant product? (Yeah, sadly this is probably just daydreaming.) --- While at it, some food for thought: A "perfectly valid HTML document" per comment 18: http://qa-dev.w3.org/~ville/perfectly-valid.exe And here's a perfectly valid plain text document: http://qa-dev.w3.org/~ville/perfectly-valid.txt
"An example of incorrect and dangerous behavior is a user-agent that reads some part of the body of a response and decides to treat it as HTML based on its containing a <!DOCTYPE declaration or <title> tag, when it was served as text/plain or some other non-HTML type." -- http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2002/0129-mime I nevertheless agree with the behavior Tex suggests...
(In reply to comment #1) > This has been mentioned a few times, I'm not sure if there are other instances > floating around Bugzilla. > The problem is with Windows, not with the Validator so I think this bug in > invalid, or possibly one which should be resolved with a specific mention of the > Windows issue in the error message. > I came across > http://www.lachy.id.au/blogs/log/2004/09/validating-xhtml-with-ie-using-file on > USENET which looks like a possible fix for Windows. (I haven't tested it as I do > not have easy access to a copy of Microsoft Windows). > As for PHP files, these cannot be validated as they are program source code and > not markup - as such the concept of validation is meaningless when applied to PHP. I'm in a computer science class as it is, and we were surprised to find that our new computers just updated at the start of the semester, were unable to use the Validation service because of this same bug. The side effects of your 'fix' are too great and might lead the professor or passerby's to think that things are awry. 404 errors that IE normally handles end up giving dll errors, sometimes causing IE to stop responding normally. In effect breaking the active session should too many of these occur during that session (back/forward stop working). If you guys could suggest a better solution, me, and the class I'm taking part in would appreciate it. The professor finds it annoying that she can't give an example of how to validate your file(s).
Quoting Peter Normann, who contacted me on the issue: > The validate by file upload feature of the AIS accessibility toolbar from > http://www.nils.org.au/ais/index.html somehow bypasses windows alleged > security stuff responsible for the caveat. This technique (which I have not tested) has been added to the list of "potential" workarounds in http:// www.w3.org/QA/2005/01/Validator-IE_WinXP_SP2.html
This issue was addressed (by Microsoft) as part of the updates made available today (2005-02-09) for Windows XP SP2. Would appreciate if IE/WinXP users could confirm whether the issue is gone when applying the updates.
I can confirm that MS05-014 fixes this issue.
This was never a bug with the validator to begin with, but now it has been fixed by Micrsoft's latest round of patches (I got them off of Windows Update, users with Automatic Updates should get them too), issued yesterday.
Created attachment 450 [details] bugcatcher
I just approved the distribution of my remark about service pack 3 (three) for Windows XP Professional, on my DELL return-from-lease. My attempts at validation as XHTML 1.0 transitional ALL FAILED via the UPLOAD FROM FILES option and the diagnostics were calling the files HTML 4.01, even the files which were previously OK, and no changes..... HOWEVER, on my other computer (Win XP HOME edition, SP3) the validation for the same files, was perfect and I have no trouble with UPLOAD FROM FILES option. Therefore the jury is out and I cannot register complaints at this time about the SP3 influence or lack of same. Please forgive my premature comments made prior to thorough checking. Bill C
Created attachment 1163 [details] feedsho
Created attachment 1164 [details] feedsho