HostGIS+OpenLayers WMS requests to mapserver problems

[Gregor Mosheh]

Bradley McLain wrote:
> I got it to 
> finally display again using the request shown below:

http://192.168.1.130/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=/var/www/mapfiles/mswmsrq.map&service=wms&version=1.1.1&request=getmap&SRS=EPSG:4326&layers=grap,grcad,cadbd,propbd,fmbl,varbl&BBOX=144.841,-34.5838,146.344,-34.0477&format=image/png&width=800&height=600&styles= 


Seems pretty normal to me. A styles param is optional, and it's normal 
for a WMS client to include a blank styles param. Don't worry about that.

It's also very normal to require the width, height, bbox, and SRS, and 
format. If it was working before without them, defaulting to whatever 
was in the mapfile, then that was a lax enforcement of WMS standard and 
you should be glad it's been fixed. ;)


> Despite this I cannot get WMS requests out of OpenLayers to work at all, 
> even adding all of the extra parameters it is asking for.

Since WMS seems to be working, this must be an OpenLayers issue. 
Fortunately, I use OpenLayers and Mapserver-WMS all the time; MapServer 
is my favorite WMS server. :)

So, you should probably take this up on the OpenLayers list (of which 
several of us are also members) as being OL failing to load an 
otherwise-functioning WMS layer.

The first things I would ask from a OL perspective:
* Have you tried OpenLayers.Layer.MapServer and gotten the same results?
* Have you watched the webserver's access_log and then tried pasting 
those URLs into your browser? That's my #1 debugging method.

And if you can make the server and the map accessible, that would go a 
long way towards us being able to guess what's going on.

-- 
Gregor Mosheh / Greg Allensworth
System Administrator, HostGIS cartographic development & hosting services
http://www.HostGIS.com/

"Remember that no one cares if you can back up,
  only if you can restore." - AMANDA