Custom HTTP Error Pages

This is a re-write of a hack I made for vBulletin 2.x.

What this hack does is use vBulletin to generate HTTP error pages (such as the 404 - Not Found error). For those of you trying to get an all-vB-based-site, this addition will help complete your quest. Also for anyone who wants a nicer looking HTTP error message than the standard blah.

Note: Your website needs to be on a server that uses a .htaccess file, a file located in your root public directory. This may only be servers using the Apache HTTP server, I'm not sure if any other HTTP server, like Microsoft IIS, uses that or not. Some more notes on this are included in the instructions.txt file.

There are no vB files to modify. There is one file to upload, and one product to install, which will install several new templates and two plugins. The plugins are for Who's Online display. The templates contain the actual messages. No existing templates are modified.

Special thanks to KirbyDE for showing me how to group templates using a plugin rather than a code modification.

This hack has now been re-written to use phrases. If you have a previous version, here's what you can do to upgrade.
1. Upload the new httperror.php file.
2. Add the product-jjr512_httperr.xml, overwriting the existing. (All old non-used templates should be removed automatically. This version uses only two templates: HTTP_ERROR and http_error_bit.)

[JJR512]

Originally Posted by Surviver

Hello, Thank you for this great Hack!

How can I insert the navbar by an error ?

If I insert $navbar into the template , it wont't be show ...

Thank you !

mfg Surviver

PS: Sorry for my bed english

There's some code that generates $navbar that I never put into the PHP file because I didn't see the need for a navbar. In my experience when I get a 404 message I usually just go back a page and try again or try something else. I'm in the middle of some stuff right now, but I'll take a look at adding it soon.

[mikelbeck]

I've just installed this on a couple of my sites, and I like it. ;-)

Some fixes, though...

The line:

	<title>$vboptions[bbtitle] - HTTP Error $error</title>

should be:

	<title>$vboptions[bbtitle] - HTTP Error $error[title]</title>

Without that fix, the title of the page was "HTTP Error Array". Now it's "HTTP Error 404: File Not Found".

Also, after "$headinsert" add this line:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

Without that fix, search engines could store the actual error page in it's index.

[Snake]

Sweet. So you're saying it should work just fine on 3.6.0?

[mikelbeck]

Yes, it does.

[Snake]

Thanks mikel!

[dsotmoon]

thanks for the tips and fixes, finally got my errors resolved and this hack working on 3.6.0

[phovanxua]

I got the HTTP error also (3.5.4),but when I hit the refresh page ...it's gone ....is this the right MOD for the fix .?

[ChurchMedia]

I was running this on 3.5 without any problems. I upgraded to 3.6.1 and the error screen looks like this (see attachment). It's like it's not getting the CSS info. Any ideas? Thanks for such a cool hack!

You can also see it live here:
http://www.churchmedia.net/blah

[ChurchMedia]

I found the problem. I had switched my CSS to be stored in files in the VB Style Options. I switched that off and everything is fine now.

[Exitilus]

Well I installed this on 3.6.4 with very little problems. Though for .htaccess i used an actuall URL and it seems to work fine. I think I read earlier there were some problems but seems fine so far.