Zend Exception instead of 404

Question

My ZF app is throwing an exception instead of returning a 404 for urls which are really 404s. Eg testlotto.ie/rrr should be a 404, yet I get the following:

Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Exception' with message 'Invalid controller specified (rrr)' in /mnt/pc/sites/git-lotto/lotto/irish-lotto/library/Zend/Controller/Dispatcher/Standard.php:

I have tried the suggestions on Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Exception' while creating object of model class and Uncaught exception 'Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Exception' (as well as many others), and nothing is working.

I do have my ErrorController controller in the ../application/controllers dir, which is what is returned when I die() out getControllerDirectory() from Controller/Dispatcher/Standard.php - so no problem of controller not being found.

My ErrorController is as follows (not that it matters as it is not getting called):

<?php
class ErrorController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{


    public function errorAction()
    {
        $errors = $this->_getParam('error_handler');
        switch ($errors->type) {
            case Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler::EXCEPTION_NO_CONTROLLER:
            case Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler::EXCEPTION_NO_ACTION:
                // 404 error -- controller or action not found
            $this->getResponse()->setHttpResponseCode(404);
                $this->getResponse()->setRawHeader('HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found');

                $content =<<<EOH
<h1>Unlucky!</h1>
<p>The url you entered is not a valid one - please check what you typed, the mistake is most likely there.</p>
EOH;
                break;
            default:
                // application error
                $content =<<<EOH
<h1>Error!</h1>
<p>An unexpected error occurred. Please try again later.</p>
EOH;
                break;
        }

        // Clear previous content
        $this->getResponse()->clearBody();

        $this->view->content = $content;
    }
}

The start of the despatch method is:

public function dispatch(Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request, Zend_Controller_Response_Abstract $response)
    {
        $this->setResponse($response);

        /**
         * Get controller class
         */
        if (!$this->isDispatchable($request)) {
            $controller = $request->getControllerName();
            //die($controller);
            //$this->setParam('useDefaultControllerAlways',true);

            //ErrorController::errorAction();
            if (!$this->getParam('useDefaultControllerAlways') && !empty($controller)) {
                require_once 'Zend/Controller/Dispatcher/Exception.php';
                throw new Zend_Controller_Dispatcher_Exception('Invalid controller specified (' . $request->getControllerName() . ')');
            }

            $className = $this->getDefaultControllerClass($request);

As you can see, I tried as suggested setting setParam('useDefaultControllerAlways',true);, but all this achieves is the homepage of the website is rendered (default controller of course) with a 200 response code - I need a 404.

Also, $controller dies out as the "rrr" in this example.

My question is what do I need to do to get 404's returned? This used to work on my site - I just swapped servers and now it is not working.

Answer 1

The only solution I could find to this which worked (ie the site now correctly returns a 404 for urls which do not exist), was taken from http://www.christopherhogan.com/2012/06/13/zend-framework-404-page/

Specifically, adding the below to my bootstrap file does the trick:

try {
    $frontController->dispatch();   //instead of just $frontController->dispatch();
} catch (Zend_Exception $e) {
    // this is where the 404 goes
    header( 'HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found' );
    echo "<div style='float:center; width:1000px; margin:0 auto;'><img src='http://www.foundco.com/images/404.jpg'  alt='Everything is gonna be fine, please do not panic!' /></div>";
}

However, it's not perfect, as my ErrorController does not get called into action. If anyone could suggest how to trigger my ErrorController from the bootstrap file, would be much appreciated.