Error: Illegal or empty (text)

[scott at ruralnetwork.net]

It took some digging, but I found that there was a bug in mod_perl's 
interaction with the perl CGI module that caused CGI's param() to return 
empty with forms submitted from some browsers.  Patches appeared in CGI 
version 3.01 and modperl 1.99_13 (the development version of modperl 2.0).  
No patches appeared for the modperl 1.0 series. 

As a result of these patches, CGI versions 3.01 and above can cause Freeside 
forms that use Apache::ASP and the CGI module to discard form input.  This 
was my experience on my Mandrakelinux 10 community-based system with Perl 
5.8.3 (with threads and PerlIO), Apache 1.3.29, Postresql 7.4.1, and 
Freeside 1.4.1. 

For me, the problem goes away when using CGI module versions 3.00 or 2.99 
and Freeside1.4.1 with Apache::ASP.  Or, if I use the Freeside1.4.1 with 
HTML::Mason, I haven't had any problems yet with any of the CGI module 
versions between 2.99 and 3.04. 

If you use CGI 3.00 or older, I guess it's possible that you could still 
encounter problems with certain browsers and CGI/modperl form submissions 
that brought about the bugfixes in CGI 3.01 and modperl 1.99_13. 

Here are some of the relevant postings dealing with these particular bugs: 

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-modperl&m=106753601723209&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-modperl&m=106763759526580&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-modperl&m=106790808129123&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-modperl&m=106807187303714&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-modperl&m=107134818217436&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-modperl&m=107974159300678&w=2 

The last one is mine, asking if the mod_perl 1.0 series also needs a patch 
related to this bug. 

 --
Scott Langley
scott at ruralnetwork.net
Systems Administrator
Rural Network Services