Bug Report 070403-A

On or after March 6, 2003, AOL made a change to its server 
which caused failures in certain AOL-hosted web pages on the users.aol.com server. 
The change introduced a bug. 
This is a report of that bug. 


Feature Affected
 
AOL provides its customers the ability to make web pages having fill-in forms. 
One of the features available in these forms is the "Required" list. 
(see AOL's description of this feature at http://members.aol.com/wwwadmin/email/email.htm). 
The "Required" list lets the customer specify which input fields in the form are required; 
if a visitor to that page neglects to fill in any required field, AOL's server reminds the visitor 
to finish filling in the form. 


History
 
I have used the "Required" list feature continuously since 1997. 
The breakdown occurred in several of my web pages simultaneously in 2003, 
even though I had not changed them. 
Therefore this rules out any possibility that the bug might be mine and not AOL's. 

Problem First Appeared: My archived e-mails and archived web pages show that 
certain of my web forms all stopped receiving visitor comments as early as March 7, 2003. 
However, these pages normally receive only a few comments a week, and so, the exact date is unknown. 

Problem First Proven to Exist: July 2, 2003 

Date Reported to AOL: July 7, 2003 


Symptoms and Demonstration
 
The problem is easy to see and understand. 
The forms below provide a hands-on demo. 

Bug Symptom: AOL's form software began showing sensitivity to both case and number. 
For example, this Required-list no longer works: 

      <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="required" VALUE="X">

while these 3 still work: 

      <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="required" VALUE="x">
      <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="required" VALUE="X,Y">
      <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="required" VALUE="x,y">

+ Analysis: In other words, AOL's server fails to correctly parse the "Required" field when both of these conditions are present: 
    1. the "Required" field has only one word in its value (i.e. no commas), and 
    2. that value contains at least one upper-case letter. 
In all other cases, the server works correctly, independently of case and number.


 
To see a demonstration of this bug, try these 4 fill-in forms. 
The first one will be rejected no matter what you do (bad); 
the other 3 will only be rejected if you leave the required field(s) blank (good). 

(Suggestion: Copy this HTML file and its accompanying .eml file to your own directory 
so that you receive an e-mail each time one of these forms succeeds.
You can still see the bugs even if you don't copy the files, 
but I will receive an e-mail each time you press Submit. 
And so long as my inbox doesn't fill up, that's not really a bad thing. 
Feel free to test it either way.)  


 
Demo 1: X 


  Required field:  
  
	
  




 
Demo 2: x 


  Required field:  
  
	
  




 
Demo 3: X,Y 


  Required field 1:  
  Required field 2:  
  
	
  




 
Demo 4: x,y 


  Required field 1:  
  Required field 2:  
  
	
  





 


Additional Evidence
 
Notice that if you leave all the input-areas blank, 
the first form gets a slightly different error message: 

    When you submitted the form, the following required fields lacked appropriate information:

        X

The other 3 forms get these error messages: 


    When you submitted the form, the following required fields lacked appropriate information:

        x

    When you submitted the form, the following required fields lacked appropriate information:

        x
        y

    When you submitted the form, the following required fields lacked appropriate information:

        x
        y

Notice that in the latter 3, the variable names are all in lower case, indicating that the server is doing something different to the first form! 


 


Possibly Related Problems
 
Also in March 2003, all of my AOL hit counters quit working. 
Because of the close timing, I suspect the same server change that affected the HTML forms also affected the handling of counters. 
For more on the counter problem, see the bug report I sent to AOLPhoneTech@aol.com on March 26, 2003. 



 

	Sincerely, 

	 (mr.) 
	Software Engineer and Tester (for hire) 
	Testing Pays! 
	http://users.aol.com/JEBrown800 
	Los Alamos, New Mexico  USA 
and
	http://proofreading4civility.com/

, BS Computer Science, has been a software engineer for over 20 years and an AOL user since 1996.





Caution
 
Note: As in every company, it's possible you'll delegate this bug report to a new employee. 
If you do, please keep an eye on his or her progress. 
New employees sometimes have little experience with customer support and service, 
and sometimes find it easier to blame the customer than to fully investigate the problem. 

Such behavior is unprofessional. 
My policy on unprofessional behavior is to report it to AOL management. 
So, if you delegate this bug report to a new employee, please see that he or she has adequate supervision.

Concepts:

AOL complaints, AOL problems, AOL breakdowns, reviews of AOL, how AOL treats its customers

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