500 error despite site-wide error handler

Question

Hi,
Users are getting this message, despite having the default error page turned on:
HTTP Status 500 - ROOT CAUSE: coldfusion.filter.FormScope$PostParametersLimitExceededException: POST parameters exceeds the maximum limit specified in the server.
I know why I'm getting the error -- I need to reduce the form size to comply with a recent update that put in the post parameters limit -- but a user who isn't even in the list of debugging IPs shouldn't see this error. Is there something about a 500 error like this that is such a big deal that even Coldfusion can't handle it? My guess is that must be Tomcat which is throwing the error, so ColdFusion can't intercede and display the default error page.

Answer 1

<cftry>
Any code here will be watched for exceptions, but there is nothing here, so there is really nothing that can ever throw an exception.
<cfcatch type="any">
Code here will be run ONLY if there is an exception thrown in the above section.
<cfswitch expression="#cfcatch.type#">
<cfcase value="template"><cfset backgroundcolor = "lightsteelblue"></cfcase>
<cfcase value="expression"><cfset backgroundcolor = "blanchedalmond"></cfcase>
<cfcase value="database"><cfset backgroundcolor = "linen"></cfcase>
<cfdefaultcase><cfset backgroundcolor = "darkkhaki"></cfdefaultcase>
</cfswitch>
</cfcatch>
This code will set a variable named 'backgroundcolor' if it is run which will only happen if there is an exception in the watched code at the beginning of the try block.
</cftry>
This is the end of the try block.
<cfset chop = len(GetBaseTemplatePath()) - 9>
<cfoutput>
<div style="border:solid 1px green; background : #backgroundcolor#;">
<h2>THE REQUESTED PAGE IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE... PLEASE RE-VISIT IN APPROXIMATELY 30 MINS. </h2>
</div>
</cfoutput>
This code will be run wheter there is an excpetion or not.  But it is relying on a variable that is only set if there is an exception, and there is no code in inside the <cftry>...</cftry> block so there is pretty much NO chance of anything ever throwing an exception.