Parse .html as PHP stops cutom 404 error page loading in IE

Hello,
I have edited my .htaccess file to point to a custom 404 page by adding

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html

Then i wanted to add a little php code to my site, the navigation menu onto every page, so i added a server side include on each .html page.
Then I researched how to parse .html as php and found i can add

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .html .htm
or
AddType application/x-httpd-php .html .htm

It worked, the php appears and i didnt have to rename all my pages .php. Pretty cool, but the custom 404 error page dosent show up in IE8.

If i remove the above code it works again, put it back and i get the defualt IE8 error page. From my limited testing, on two PC's, XP and Vista, and 5 different browsers IE6 & IE8 are affected. Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox are not affected.

I also use in the .htaccess file
ErrorDocument 403 /403.html
Options -Indexes

And when a browser tries to browse directories it takes them to my custom 403 error page that says forbidden. That function is not affected.

Hope you can help. Thank you in advance.

 

In all honesty, forget about IE - Yes there may still be a lot of IE users, however they are getting infected slowly

Put a note on the page - not compatible with IE.

 

Thanks but thats not the answer im looking for. When a potential customer on my site reaches a page that dosent exist, I want them to reach a custom 404 error page. Thanks for your time.

Hope someone with Apache skills can help.

Kurt.

 

I did this to fix it, If anyone has a better idea and explaination please let me know.

In the .htaccess file I changed the application/x-httpd-php line to only work for .html. Then i changed the name of the error document to 404.htm.

ErrorDocument 404 /404.htm
AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

It is working.