Precondition failed

Here is an interesting situation that came up and maybe someone who is smarter than me can resolve it.  I found a workaround but I can’t answer the question of ‘why did that happen?’.  I got an email from Simon last night and he is in Australia.(The location seems to be relevant to this issue)  He explained that when trying to click thru to this page, he was getting a ‘HTTP 412 Precondition failed’ error. 

If you completely understand the HTTP cycle(I know more now than I did earlier), this error occurs in the final step of that process when the HTTP data stream is received back from the web server with status codes.  One of these statuses could indicate Precondition failed.  This will prevent the requestor from seeing the web page.  I know this info, courtesy of Google, so if you were impressed by drawing on my vast knowledge, I’ll let you down easy.  The secret of my success in most everything I have ever done is knowing how to find the solution, not necessarily always knowing the answer up front.  Therefore, to admit that Google is my friend should not be a shocker.

So, I Googled this and found a few sites detailing this error.  OK, so what?  This still didn’t help me, but it really bothered me that someone couldn’t get somewhere on my site, it made no sense to me.  Simon then mentioned that he has had similar issue with other WordPress blogs and specifically with the Bad Behavior plug-in.  Lo and behold, I installed that exact plug-in recently.  I honestly wasn’t sure if there was any real benefit to it, not to dis this particular plug-in but I just wasn’t that educated about it’s purpose.  Honestly, I’m still not, but I  went in last night and deactivated it, let Simon know and he was in.  Very cool!

So I haven’t given up on this plug-in, maybe I can tweak it to correct this limitation but for now, it’s turned off.  If anyone has any insight or experience in this, let me know. 

By the way, Simon mentioned he was with Australia’s largest ISP and in my research, I discovered that this error occurs frequently with this particular ISP.

Thank you Simon, for letting me know of this issue!  I truly appreciate it because it does bother me to think someone was having trouble with my site.  

On a final note, I’m sure other blogging platforms offer an equivalent, but I do know that WordPress includes a comment moderation list and comment blacklist list, where you enter words that you want to catch in comments that you want thrown into moderation or totally obliterated.  You create your own list and I received both of my lists from another WordPress user.  I think I know off hand who it was, but I want to confirm and give credit, so I’ll verify my source, then share the 2 lists.  By keeping up on these 2 lists, you should be able to head off much of the spam, or at least throw it to moderation and catch it before it goes out on the site.

UPDATE: The above link to my own page in the first paragraph is now fixed.  I didn’t realize that my post editor assumed all click thrus come from this site, and not from Bloglines.  Thanks Clint, for the heads up!  I always enter the full link (such as http://…..) but didn’t know behind the scenes, only the specific address to the page was being used.  In Bloglines, it assumed I was sending you to a Bloglines page and, of course, did not find it.  Now I know more than I did when I woke up this morning!  wooohooo!!