Error handling in ASP

[Erik]

Hi!
I'm building a 3-tier solution using ASP and VB-COMs in MTS + SQL-Server.
When raising an error in the business tier (VB) the IIS/ASP cannot handle
it. When running the code in VB with a VB-form it works just fine, but using
ASP/IIS the CPU runs up to 100% and stays there until the MTS process is
killed. The ASP-page just times out.

This only happens with my own error raising. SQL-errors and other VB errors
returns OK.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong???

[Paul Klanderud]

Erik:

I don't know all the details of why this is so, but basically (as you're
discovering) you should never raise a user-defined error back to a page running
under IIS. This generally produces undesirable results, often to the point
of requiring the service to be stopped and restarted.

So, you're not doing anything wrong technically; it's just that you're misapplying
it.

What are your options? It depends on how your function calls are built and
how much flexibility you have. One option would be to have a by reference
argument in all calls, and use it for error messages: if it has something,
it means there was an error; if not, success.

Another option is to build something a bit more elaborate (but more useful)
like an XML-based error string (either as a return value or a by reference
argument) that could hold as much error info as you want. For example (I'm
sure you could think of something better):

<Error ID="123454">
<Routine>CProcessData.InsertCustomer</Routine>
<Description>Primary Key Violation</Description>
<Message>Anything else the developer might find useful</Message>
<DateTime>12/07/00 10:00:32</DateTime>
</Error>

Then you could have a routine (either in script or in another dll) that interprets
and handles these errors.

Hope that helps,
Paul Klanderud

"Erik" <erple@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Hi!
>I'm building a 3-tier solution using ASP and VB-COMs in MTS + SQL-Server.
>When raising an error in the business tier (VB) the IIS/ASP cannot handle
>it. When running the code in VB with a VB-form it works just fine, but using
>ASP/IIS the CPU runs up to 100% and stays there until the MTS process is
>killed. The ASP-page just times out.
>
>This only happens with my own error raising. SQL-errors and other VB errors
>returns OK.
>
>Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong???