Bug 43762

Summary:	Misleading tips in an error message about internal redirects
Product:	Apache httpd-2	Reporter:	Motin <issues.apache.org>
Component:	Core	Assignee:	Apache HTTPD Bugs Mailing List <bugs>
Status:	NEW ---
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	P4
Version:	2.5-HEAD
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	All

Description Motin 2007-10-31 17:56:37 UTC

When facing a rewrite loop condition problem, the following error message is
printed to the error log:
[Thu Nov 01 01:01:01 2007] [error] [client 00.000.000.00] Request exceeded the
limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error. Use
'LimitInternalRecursion' to increase the limit if necessary. Use 'LogLevel
debug' to get a backtrace.

It is not evident at all that this is due to a rewrite loop condition, especiall
when enabling LogLevel debug won't produce any "backtrace" as claimed. This is
very misleading. 

A notice level log entry about this is being caused by a rewrite loop condition
(debugged using the RewriteLog directive) would be in place - or some mentioning
of this in the original error message information would be even clearer, for
instance: "Use 'RewriteLog' to debug misconfigured rewrite rules".

Comment 1 Motin 2007-10-31 18:15:49 UTC

As a user on IRC commented, maybe it's better to simply change:

"Use 'LogLevel debug' to get a backtrace."
 to 
"Use 'RewriteLog' together with a high value of 'RewriteLogLevel' to debug
misconfigured mod_rewrite rules"

The basis for this bug report is btw that this message is caused by mod_rewrite
in almost all cases and that the mentioned backtrace actually doesn't exist. All
according to the very same IRC user. ("thumbs" in #apache@irc.freenode.net)

Comment 2 Joshua Slive 2007-11-12 06:56:37 UTC

There are several ways other than mod_rewrite to generate recursive internal
redirects, so your suggested error message doesn't work.