Still with me? Excellent! Those of you who have chosen to continue will be rewarded by finally finding out what those irritating "Unexpected Error" pages really mean.
Here's the lead-in blurb for the article:
Booming traffic demands put a constant stress on the social network's computing infrastructure. Yet, MySpace developers have repeatedly redesigned the Web site software, database and storage systems in an attempt to keep pace with exploding growth - the site now handles almost 40 billion page views a month. Most corporate Web sites will never have to bear more than a small fraction of the traffic MySpace handles, but anyone seeking to reach the mass market online can learn from its experience.
Why We See "Unexpected Error" Pages
And what about those "Unexpected Error" pages? Click here for the full details. But here's the most important cause: Microsoft SQL Server limitations or crashes:
anytime a database craps out, that's bad news if the data for the page you're trying to view is stored there. "Anytime that happens, and uncached data is unavailable through SQL Server, you'll see one of those unexpected errors"
Yup, the "Unexpected Error" page is really Bill's problem, not Tom's.