How To Display Error Messages from the Server When You Use Remote Scripting (238284)

SUMMARY

If you have an HTML page that uses Remote Scripting, and you encounter an error that occurred on the server, a dialog box appears with the following message:

Remote Scripting Error
REMOTE SCRIPTING ERROR: Page Invoked does not support Remote Scripting.

Unfortunately, this error message does not provide any useful information about how to resolve the issue. This article demonstrates how you can use the data and status properties of the object that is returned to display the error that is returned from the server.

The status property of the Remote Scripting object will tell us whether we encountered an error (0 = no error), and the data property will return the contents of that error.

In addition, you must consider that server errors from Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) are formatted as HTML. As a result, the data property contains the HTML that is returned instead of formatted text. This can make the error text difficult to read. This article also demonstrates how to place the content of the data property into a browser window (by using window.open and document.write) so that the error results appear formatted.

NOTE: If your Web server is Windows 2000, you must perform the steps in the following article for your server-side error to be returned:

259649 PRB: The Data Property of a Remote Scripting Object Is Empty with IIS 5.0 Server

MORE INFORMATION

To create the sample, follow these steps: IMPORTANT: These steps assume that you have remote scripting installed in the _ScriptLibrary subfolder of your Web.

Create an Active Server Pages (ASP) page named Sample_server.asp in your Web, and paste the following code:

<%@ LANGUAGE=VBSCRIPT %>
<!--#include file="_ScriptLibrary/rs.asp"-->
<% RSDispatch %>
<SCRIPT Language=JavaScript RUNAT=SERVER>
	function Description()
	{ 
		this.myFunction = myFunction;
	}
	public_description = new Description();


	function myFunction()
	{
	    ForceError();   //This will force a server-side error
	}

</SCRIPT>

Create an HTML page in your Web named Sample_client.htm, and paste the following code:

<HTML>
<BODY>
<SCRIPT Language="JavaScript" src="_ScriptLibrary/rs.htm"></SCRIPT>
<h2>Sample Remote Scripting Client</h2>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
	RSEnableRemoteScripting();

	var serverURL = "sample_server.asp";
	function myTest()
	{
		var RSObj = RSExecute(serverURL, "myFunction");
		
		if (RSObj.status != 0) { WriteError(RSObj.data); }
	} 

	function WriteError(strHTML) {
	  var w = window.open("","error_window","width=500,height=300,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no")
	  w.document.write("<HTML>");
	  w.document.write("<BODY>");
	  w.document.write("<CENTER>");
	  w.document.write("<H2>Remote Scripting Call Returned the following:</H2>");
	  w.document.write("<TABLE border=1 cellpadding=10 bgcolor=#dddddd><TR><TD>");
	  w.document.write(strHTML)
	  w.document.write("</TD></TR></TABLE>");
	  w.document.write("<FORM><INPUT type=button value=\" OK \" onclick=self.close()></FORM>");
	  w.document.write("</CENTER>");
	  w.document.write("</BODY>");
	  w.document.write("</HTML>");
	}
</SCRIPT>
<form>
<input type=button name=rstest value=" Go " onclick="myTest()">
</form>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Open Sample_client.htm in your browser (by using HTTP://), and then click Go. The error occurs and a new window will be written that shows the formatted HTML.