# Just curious: re Search Engine weirdo error message, or is it me? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 26, 2000, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-re-search-engine-weirdo-error-message-or-is-it-me/42786 "2000-11-26T20:12:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2000, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-re-search-engine-weirdo-error-message-or-is-it-me/42786/1 "2000-11-26T20:12:57Z")
Beg pardon if this has already been covered during the last 90 days. Using the Column Archives this afternoon, it frequently gives me this at the bottom: > [@](#): > > The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. > Please contact the server administrator, [jdavis@chicagoreader.com](mailto:jdavis@chicagoreader.com) and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. > > More information about this error may be available in the server error log. Just curious: is it just because it’s a busy Sunday afternoon, or is the server having indigestion, or what? (It did bring stuff up for me, but I found myself wondering whether it was missing stuff. I thought there was a column somewhere on cadaver spasms, where the dead hand is clutching something and you can’t get it to let go, but I couldn’t find it.) ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2000, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-re-search-engine-weirdo-error-message-or-is-it-me/42786/2 "2000-11-26T20:43:27Z")
Not having the answer: did you send a quick mail to the mentioned address? If not, please do - I’m sure the techs would like to hear about any problems with the search engine. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2000, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-re-search-engine-weirdo-error-message-or-is-it-me/42786/3 "2000-11-27T03:37:58Z")
[rather startled to think she might have actually encountered something important] Um, no, I didn’t bother to e-mail the techs, because last spring and summer one frequently got weirdo error messages like this, which just meant that the server was groaning under its burden, and there was no point in telling the techs because they already knew. Tried it again just now (looking up “spasms” in the Column Archives), and I notice it also has this, between the last Search result and the boilerplate quoted above: > [@](#): > > HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 03:32:17 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) mod\_perl/1.21 Connection: close Transfer-Encoding: chunked Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Fascinating, Mr. Spock. But what does it all mean? ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2000, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-re-search-engine-weirdo-error-message-or-is-it-me/42786/4 "2000-11-27T10:20:52Z")
_I don’t know what it means._ I do encounter the same problem though. I’ll mail the link to this thread to the techs. But in general, it is OK to send a mail to them if the error message asks you to.