404 Custom Error in IIS 6.0 and ASPX doesnt work

Question

I've created a 404 error page called 404.aspx which works fantastic when I call it manually. But after setting the "custom error" in web.config and IIS 6.0. It doesn't work properly.

for example, If I type the URL the wrong way, it won't work and a message like the one below, appears.

XML Parsing Error: not well-formed
Location: **http://domain/anything** (without an extension)
Line Number 1, Column 2:<%@ page language="C#" masterpagefile="~/Public.master" autoeventwireup="true" inherits="_404, App_We 

And, if I type the url like this: http://domain/anything.ASPX (ADDING THE .ASPX) at the end, it will redirect to the custom error 404.aspx correctly and works fine.

What can I do to make this work ?

Answer 1

Sounds like you've set the IIS custom error page type to File instead of Url .

Setting to File will just cause IIS to render the contents of your error page verbatim to the response stream (ie as a static file) instead of doing a HTTP redirect to the error page causing the page to be processed by ASP.NET.

IIS 6 requires that an 'Absolute URL within the site' to be entered if using the URL message type, for example:

/404.aspx

Answer 2

I assume that your syntax is as follows:

<customErrors
       mode="RemoteOnly" 
       defaultRedirect="~/errors/GeneralError.aspx" 
/>

To see the custom page yourself set mode to "On"

<customErrors
       mode="On" 
       defaultRedirect="~/errors/GeneralError.aspx" 
/>

The modes are defined as follows:

• On – error details are not shown to anybody, even local users. If you specified a custom error page it will be always used.
• Off – everyone will see error details, both local and remote users. If you specified a custom error page it will NOT be used.
• RemoteOnly – local users will see detailed error pages with a stack trace and compilation details, while remote users with be presented with a concise page notifying them that an error occurred. If a custom error page is available, it will be shown to the remote users only.