Failed Precondition

Published 04 March 08 08:05 AM

I'm back in the office for the first time since the BRM, and I wanted to take a look at the various conversions on the blogs that have been discussing the BRM. I have no problems reading the threads on Jason's blog, Brian's blog, Oliver's blog, Tim Bray's blog, Yoon Kit's blog, Rob Weir's blog, and many others, but for some reason I can't get to Andy Updegrove's blog from here at Microsoft. I was able to get there from my laptop at my hotel over the weekend, from kiosks at a couple of airports in Europe, and from my home computer last night, but from the Microsoft campus I get the error shown below every time.

I've just heard from a co-worker that they get the same error when they try to connect from Microsoft. Andy, is there a rule we need to know about here? We'd love to participate in the open dialog if we could.

by dmahugh
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# MSDN Blog Postings » Failed Precondition said on March 4, 2008 11:45 AM:

PingBack from http://msdnrss.thecoderblogs.com/2008/03/04/failed-precondition/

# Andre said on March 4, 2008 12:27 PM:

Spamfilter? Compromised machines?

# aristippus said on March 4, 2008 3:47 PM:

Doug,

I can see it on my machine - it says

"OOXML rejected by everyone at BRM (including Microsoft) for time immemorial, never to be seen again for eternity"

"Microsoft kidnapped ISO officials family members and held them to ransom"

"Microsoft transferred funds to Alex Browns secret Swiss bank account"

"All NBs that voted yes were actually androids manufactured and controlled by Microsoft"

"ODF cures cancer"

"ODF will bring world peace and harmony to all"

"Microsoft=Evil"

"Steve Ballmer=Beelzebub"

"Burn Redmond"

etc.

Gareth

# Andy Updegrove said on March 4, 2008 4:03 PM:

Doug,

No, you're not being blocked.  In fact, for some reason, for the past two years my site has gotten more visitors from just Microsoft, let alone Redmond, than from any other city on earth other than Beijing (the site is a big hit there, too).

I don't know what the problem is, but I did get one email from someone at Microsoft yesterday and asked what platform he was using.  The reply was:

IE 7.0.6001.17036, on a machine running a pre-release of Vista SP1 - I don't know whether that's where the problem may lie, but if you've just done a location-wide upgrade, perhaps that's the problem.

Anyway, since I'm not getting any complaints from anyone anywhere else, there must be some issue at your end. If you figure it out and need any help from our end to solve the problem, let me know, and we'll take care of it.

Andy

# Alex Brown said on March 4, 2008 4:11 PM:

@aristippus

Amusingly, BSI was carrying out some statistical analysis on the figures today to work out the "total number of [...] responses accepted without discussion" and to their amusement/horror the figure came out as 666!

Fortunately it was then realised there was a slight counting error, so fortunately we will be spared the blog headlines on this one!

- Alex.

# dmahugh said on March 4, 2008 4:23 PM:

Thanks for the info, Andy.  Now I'm confused; it would have been so much simpler if it were simply your fault. :-)  I'll try to get an answer and let you know.

Alex, I'm so glad to hear that the total isn't 666.

# Jesper Lund Stocholm said on March 5, 2008 3:40 AM:

Dough,

I smell a conspiracy here :o) It seems to me that I have been banned from Robs blog for the very first time.

... and all I said was something along this:

"Rob, I am amazed on the patronising tone you have for the Czech delegate. Jirka was thé most prepared delegate I talked to during the BRM and no matter which response I discussed with him, he had a qualified opinon. I wonder how many delegations can claim the same."

... of course ... it could be that it was not Robs fault - maybe the bits have been delayed.

# hAl said on March 5, 2008 10:03 AM:

Andies site is horrible behind a proxyserver/firewall as well.

So most likely it is the MS proxyserver/firewall that is rejected somehow.

It is Andies site that does this with some wierd protection software as I have experienced this from the Netherlands as well when surfing from behind several different companies internet proxies.

Reading is fine but adding a post is a big nono so it dependon what software you have on your internet server.

# dmahugh said on March 5, 2008 10:53 AM:

I've found a workaround, thanks to Mauricio Ordonez: turn off the auto-detect option under Internet Options/Connections/LAN Settings in IE, and then you can view the site.  (Not sure whether that helps with posting, as I haven't tried yet.)

Jesper, I agree with your view of Jirka.  He was a role model in terms of his level of preparation for the BRM and contribution to the technical discussions.  It's also worth noting that he was pushing Ecma to revise certain dispositions long before the BRM, and has been actively working to improve the spec throughout every step of the process.

# carlos said on March 5, 2008 1:04 PM:

A clue:

Why don't you try with a decent ( carefully peer reviewed not rushed one ) browser:

getfirefox.com

# dmahugh said on March 5, 2008 1:12 PM:

Nice theory, Carlos, but we've confirmed that the same problem happens with Firefox from here.

# Fredrik E. Nilsen said on March 5, 2008 4:07 PM:

Jesper wrote:

"I smell a conspiracy here :o) It seems to me that I have been banned from Robs blog for the very first time."

Welcome to the club! :D

# hAl said on March 5, 2008 5:12 PM:

You let the fox in the hen house ?

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