Strange 404 error handling on Apache web server

Question

My group recently pulled out of hosting, and now we're on a
Solaris server running Apache 1.3.29 (A bit behind the times, but
I've got no control there): (Server Version: Apache/1.3.29 (Unix)
JRun/4.0 mod_ssl/2.8.16 OpenSSL/0.9.7c). They quickly threw the
server together, and something's wrong with the 404 error handling.
Here are the symptoms:
- When the request is for a .cfm file, and that file doesn't
exist, the user is redirected to the 404 error page where all
request information is lost. By redirected, I mean
http://servername/test.cfm
goes to
http://servername/404.cfm.
When looking for the request information, it's as if the user had
browsed directly to 404.cfm and not test.cfm.
- When the request is for anything else that does not have
.cfm, say,
http://servername/blah/ (even if
it pulls a .cfm as the default file), instead of being
"redirected", the contents of the 404 error page are pulled up.
Now, all the request information is pulled up, although in custom
cgi variables like cgi.redirect_url and cgi.redirect_query_string,
but at least the values are there.
I realize it's hard to diagnose this problem without more
specifics on how the server was set up, but the only access I have
is WebDAV to the web root, and pretty much all collaboration
between our groups has been cut off so I won't be able to provide
any more information that the symptoms. Has anyone had a similar
problem? If so, could you provide some details?
Thanks for your time in reading this.
On a side note, taking a little poll, who uses a single
powerhouse server that costs tens of thousands of dollars, and who
uses cheaper, redundant hardware with load balancing?

Answer 1

i checked and found there r no files like that.does these files really prsent?
%forms60java%/oracle/ewt/alert/resource/
AlertBundle_en_US.class
AlertBundle_en.class
also i m getting file not exists for Default.dat in registry directory of forms60.
null