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Are There Problems with AOL's Web Access?

Posted by Cliff on from the 1E9-reasons-not-to-use-AOL dept.

Glowbead asks: "I run a web design company, and recently I've started stuggling with AOL. A client wants to use AOL as her service provider, which is fine, except that I can't get a submission form with 'type=mulipart/form-data' to go through. The form need to be multipart because they need to be able to upload images. I also can't get any info whatsoever out of AOL as to what the problem might be, other than this useless page. Does anyone know a way around this? Are there other standard problems you guys see when a client is using AOL to access your site? Can/How do you get around them?" This is not the first time I've heard of problems using AOL. What other gotchas have you all found when trying to use or access AOL's web-based services?

2 of 11 comments (clear)

  1. Re:bad page design by generic-man · · Score: 3

    It most certainly is standards-compliant. It fits every one of AOL's web standards to a T. It's bulky, has lots of crappy scripting to provide the disguise of functionality, and "real" web users scoff at it.

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  2. bad page design by Louis_Wu · · Score: 3
    My tale of trying to view AOL's webmaster page, as linked in the article.
    • I tried to view the AOL "help" page from Opera 4.02, and the navigation frame on the left didn't show up. Funny, I can view the source.
    • So I tried IE 5.5, figuring that AOL would support at least that browser (after all, they ship it as part of the package), and the frame's Javascript magically worked.
    • Then I tried Navigator 4.74, and the Javascript worked again. Magic.
    • I was then truly intrigued, so I put the page in Amaya (W3C's standard's demonstrating browser/authoring tool), and the page didn't load at all. None of the frames showed up, but I could look at the source if I wanted to.
    • And I couldn't get Mozilla 17 to load the navigation frame at all, then the reload put the main frame in the navigation frame. (BTW, a connection was refused when attempting to contact webmaster.info.aol.com.) Persistent reloading got the main frame back into the right spot, but I still can't see the Javascript navigation frame on the left, though I can see the source.
    • K-Meleon also gives me the connection error, but I can't get anything to show up on the screen.

    In short, AOL's webmaster info page doesn't seem standard's compliant. Oh, and this is all from Win98, on a T1.

    After this, I don't want to read about how to make my pages work with their software. If I can't even see their webpage with my browser, how can I trust them when they tell me what will work with theirs? Their suggestions would probably break Opera or Mozilla.

    . . .

    Oh, wait, their page has already broken Opera and Mozilla. Should I use "probably break", or should I use "will break (assuming hell doesn't freeze over)"?

    Louis Wu

    "Where do you want to go ...