Plenty of people complain that they come up against the implacable wall of error messages when surfing the Net. However, most surfers assume that these error messages are attributable to the concerned website rather than their own computers. As this article tells you, that is not always so. In other words, the error message could be reflecting a fault with your own server or PC, therefore, you need to know exactly what a particular error message means before you can work on fixing it. Indeed, you need to know whether it can be fixed at that point of time at ll!

Error: 404; File Not Found

While this is the commonest error message on the Internet, it is unfortunately the one you are least likely o fix. This message usually means that the web server cannot find the file or web page that you are trying to load in your browser. And you can do almost nothing about the problem other than clicking your browser’s “Refresh” button to see if the page will load. If it does not, try mailing the website operator about the problem and move to other sites.

Error: 500; Internal Error

Once again, this is an error message that you can do practically nothing about. The message is usually displayed when you fill in the fields of a form on a page (such as a feedback form) and click the submit button, and it means that the server or the script that is handling the form on the server has a problem. So no matter how many times you submit the form, the result will be the same. Frustrating, but that’s life!

Error: 408; Request Timeout

This is a pretty self-explanatory error message and it usually comes up when you are trying to download some seriously huge file and the connection to the Internet times out. Thankfully, the solution is relatively easy: hit the “Refresh” button and the download should resume from where it stopped. If it doesn’t, you could either inform the website owner of the problem or try downloading again a little later.

Error: Host Unavailable

This, friend, is a serious problem. In 9 cases out of 10, this means that the server tat you are trying to access is down. So no matter how many times you refresh the page, the result is unlikely to be any different. If you are lucky, you may be successful a little later because there’s always the possibility that the first time round, the owner had been restarting the server or had disconnected it from the web. However, this is really an outside chance, and you can’t bet on it. So your best bet is to come back the next day, because you can’t even mail the website owner!

Error: Unable to Locate Host

Once again, this error message could mean that the server is down. However, it could also mean that your Internet connection is dead, or that you keyed in the wrong web address. To take the easiest route first, retype the web address. If that fails, check to see if you are connected to the web. If you are, disconnect and restart your PC. And if that fails as well, come back the next day! Of course, if it is imperative that you view that particular web page now, you could try phoning the website owner if you can.