This post: http://codeigniter.com/forums/viewthread/46397/

Probably belongs here…

If the error happens only when using mod_rewrite then it’s not likely to be a CI issue.

Hi Rick,

I shall try it without mod_rewrite

I’ve never used mod_rewrite, so first time user of that while learning CI (which I think is awesome BTW).

Any ideas?

My mod_rewrite would be putting the index.php/ part in there, so I can’t quite work out what else it could be.

Ok here is what I think happens.

It’s not related to mod_rewrite.

If there is no controller specified, CI give you a 404.

But… That 404 page doesn’t allow you to use any of the nice stuff CI does, like the URL helper.  So all my anchor and base_url commands don’t work.

That either limits me to a hard coded URL, or a nasty 404.

HushPe - 19 October 2006 12:21 AM

But… That 404 page doesn’t allow you to use any of the nice stuff CI does, like the URL helper.  So all my anchor and base_url commands don’t work.

Right, that’s because the CI object doesn’t exist until a valid controller is found.  If there is no controller, CI won’t ever be fully instantiated (remember that controllers extend the main CI controller, which allow everything to work as it does), so helpers and such won’t be available.

There’s another reason that I chose to keep 404 pages lean and simple:  Performance.  If you’ve ever examined the server logs on a busy site you’ll see that crawlers like Google can hammer a site with invalid requests.  I’ve seen search engines produce literally thousands of hits to nonexistent pages.  Do you really want your 404s to use all the resources of your application, just like you would with valid pages?  I sure don’t.  IMO 404s should be as lightweight as possible since their only purpose is to send a 404 header and a bit of info.

Hi Rick,

Thanks for that.  I was after a confirmation of how it worked.  And was considering tone-ing it down a bit.  I haven’t had many probs with the Google bot, but I could see the potential for problems with massive dynamic sites.

Thanks again.

hi,
is it possible to echo the “not existing filename” it is trying to load, just just the plain 404 error and leave u guessing.

Rick Ellis - 19 October 2006 11:47 PM

HushPe - 19 October 2006 12:21 AM

But… That 404 page doesn’t allow you to use any of the nice stuff CI does, like the URL helper.  So all my anchor and base_url commands don’t work.

Right, that’s because the CI object doesn’t exist until a valid controller is found.  If there is no controller, CI won’t ever be fully instantiated (remember that controllers extend the main CI controller, which allow everything to work as it does), so helpers and such won’t be available.

There’s another reason that I chose to keep 404 pages lean and simple:  Performance.  If you’ve ever examined the server logs on a busy site you’ll see that crawlers like Google can hammer a site with invalid requests.  I’ve seen search engines produce literally thousands of hits to nonexistent pages.  Do you really want your 404s to use all the resources of your application, just like you would with valid pages?  I sure don’t.  IMO 404s should be as lightweight as possible since their only purpose is to send a 404 header and a bit of info.