I've written a print release system that we're using to manage printing in Biology. We have to run the print release system configured differently between wahoo (in the ISB) and snapper (in Morrill). On snapper it doesn't have Drupal as its parent and on wahoo, we have to have it manage queues on wahoo, but use the database on snapper to maintain page quotas, etc. Trying to keep a common codebase between the two installations is problematic. I'm trying to keep the configuration info separate from the code, but it's not perfect.
Since I last updated the print release system on wahoo, we'd been having odd problems. Occasionally, when you'd load one of the print release system pages, you'd get a weird error out of Drupal in the parent directory. (The error looked like drupal was trying to run as if it was inside the print release folder and it couldn't find its associated files to load). There didn't seem to be any correlation between which action you took and the appearance of the error. I did a lot of experimentation and eventually tracked it down (I think).
In the .htaccess file in the drupal directory, Drupal sets itself up to be the agent responsible for 404 errors. In the css file for the print release system, I was trying to load the background graphic from snapper (a picture of a snapper) instead of for wahoo (a picture of a wahoo). That graphic didn't exist on wahoo, and so it caused a 404 error. And the 404 error would prompt apache to try to invoke Drupal. And Drupal couldn't run in that context. Or something. I still can't figure out why it would only break the thing randomly. But it was a very weird manifestation of a simple, boneheaded problem which I think I have corrected.
- Steven D. Brewer's blog
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