hostavailable - always .T.

[CALocklin]

Huh???

?hostavailable("asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk")
.T.

Can someone else please confirm that the hostavailable() command always returns .T. even when the website definition is nonsense.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Not sure if it will help but the question was recently discussed here.

And your expression gets a false here.

?hostavailable("asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk")
= .F.

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Cal:

?hostavailable("asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk")
= .F.

EDIT: I'm using v.8

[CALocklin]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Not sure if it will help but the question was recently discussed here.

And your expression gets a false here.

?hostavailable("asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk")
= .F.

That's not the same issue. If it was a valid host, then I could understand testing for a specific port. Somehow I don't think "asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk" is a valid host name. It certainly doesn't come up in my browser!:p

?hostavailable("asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk")
= .F.

EDIT: I'm using v.8

Ruh, roh. Something's strange. It returns .T. for me in both v8 and v9. I know it used to work in v8 so what's going on?

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Cal, did you try a reboot?

[CALocklin]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Cal, did you try a reboot?

Yep!

There's definitely something weird going on. My customers are getting occasional error messages because their computers are returning .F. to this command. I use it to check for an internet connection before starting certain uploads/downloads. In their case, it sometimes returns .F. even when there is an internet connection and my host site is up and running.

At least I know it's something on my end now.

[Bob Arbuthnot]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Cal,

Something's gone awry with this function. You'll recall that I posted 10 days ago or so that on a couple PCs it was always returning false when it had been working correctly (or so I thought).

http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...hostavailable()

On those 2 PCs all I still get is false with google, yahoo, microsoft, etc.

I have 2 A5V8 developer edition PCs, latest patch, plugged into the same network switch. One returns correctly, then other one is always false. The one that always returns F also has V9 loaded on it and it also always returns False.

I thought it might be a Microsoft or Java update as the cause, but really didn't have a clue as to why it suddenly stopped working.

I have not submitted a bug report at this time because it's not reproducible on all PCs. I think someone from Alpha is going to have to look under the hood of this function and see what's up.

ba

[csda1]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Hi Cal,

I get false as well when trying your code.

The hostavailable() has not changed from version 8 code, so it's either something at your end, or the underlying code associated with sockets.open() .or. sockets.query_tcp() has changed in some odd way.

I always try it with "www.google.com" and go from that point.

[ChrisHawkes]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Cal

I've resurrected an old app on v6 and found I've got an alternative to the hostavailable() function - perhaps it will work for you if you haven't already sorted the problem yourself. I created this because the client that was using the app was on a Microsoft SBS2000 network with the Microsoft Firewall Client, and the Hostavailable() function always returned .F. no matter what address was used or port no selected.

The function name is InternetConnectionStatus([WebAddress AS C])

Function works in v6 and above

Chris

[G Gabriel]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Cal:
Excuse me, but asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk happens to be my website!
Just go to your browser, type asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk and see what happens.

My Web Site

?hostavailable("asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk")
= .T.
?hostavailable("abc")
= .F.

?hostavailable("abc.com")
= .T.

?hostavailable("abc.jnk")
= .T.

I would think this is a bug or a misnomer:
alpha checks to see if the server is available by checking the port. Fair enough. But it seems that most browsers will take you to the closest match to your URL or to their default "server not available" page (search page) that basically redirects either to google or some spam. I think alpha should check the port AS WELL AS the URL.

Let me add to the confusion:
The HOSTAVAILABLE() function returns .T. (TRUE) if an internet connection is available. It checks to see if http://www.google.com responds.

[G Gabriel]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Perhaps you need something like this instead:

dim request as P
dim response as P
request.host = "asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk"
request.page = "asdfqwww.xxqwerspxx.jnk/userguide.pdf"
request.method = "HEAD"
response = http_fetch(request)
? response.parsed_headers.status_code
= 404
' where 404 means site not available

[CALocklin]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Let me add to the confusion:
The HOSTAVAILABLE() function returns .T. (TRUE) if an internet connection is available. It checks to see if http://www.google.com responds.

Yes. That is what the Help file says but my guess is that it's not quite true. I think someone left out the word "default" somewhere.

If it always checks for Google, then why bother allowing arguments? The syntax says:
HOSTAVAILABLE( [ Host as C [, Port as N ]] )

[CALocklin]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Thanks Chris. Does your routine just tell me that my own internet connection is OK? It seems to return .T. all the time.

G's method using "request" seems to do what I want.

The only issue with the "request" method is figuring out which response codes are acceptable. So far both 200 and 302 seem to OK. Looking at the list I found on the internet, it looks like anything under 300 should be OK - although most are not likely.

If I use that, I'll probably build a function that includes a "failure message" and maybe even allow an option to continue anyway.

FWIW:

I got a 302 response on my own website that is using A5WAS and 200 on my other site that just uses standard web pages and is on a different server. I have no idea whether that is due to the WAS or the server setup but I suspect it's the server setup.

I also got a 301 response (moved permanently?) to www.googlex.com when it sent me to some other site that offered me some related options. However, www.googlexzq.com returned a 404.

[MikeC]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Hi all,
I just tried this again and it works....but not like I expected. It will show correctly true or false but ONLY for if a site exists such as serftp.com, google.com, tttt.com --all of which produce a true result.

Now try gghhii.com, pennifig.com, or calocklin.com and they all come up as false.

So it apparently does not test for anything but what comes before and after the last dot.

Am interested if anyone finds what I found to be true.....


Oh Yeah--you do have to run the function each time prior to testing in the interactive window.

[ChrisHawkes]

Re: hostavailable - always .T.

Hi Cal

Can you try www.crapaholictest.com with the function I supplied (not an IP address), and if the function returns "Success" then you have a firewall problem. You should get the response 'Destination Protocol Unreachable'. Some firewalls, even when turned off will still default to IP address 127.0.0.1 and will still produce a successful result. Sometimes the opposite is true; this is why Hostavailable() didn't work for my client at the time.

The function I supplied is based on the ping status.