Show 404 Page When Route isn't found?

Question

When I enter a malformed product view URL, or something similar where the URL is correct but can't be handled (invalid ID for example) Magento sends me to the "CMS No Route Page" in Configuration > Web > Default Pages, but if I type in a totally bogus URL it gives me the "Error Processing Request Page" or the Stack Trace when developer mode is enabled.

Is there any way to have the "No Route Page" catch the request in these cases as well? The exception page that gets displayed isnt very user friendly and doesn't link back to the site.

Answer 1

Not really

The error page that you are seeing is because something fatal has happened, usually preventing the Magento bootstrap from initialising like it should.

If you've got a code error on a product page, the natural behaviour is to throw a fatal error, create a report and display the respective page. But if you make it 404 - then it could potentially damage your SERPs.

But you could customise the error page

Rather than just display a vague Magento-styled error to your customer, you can create a custom error page that looks a little better.

Look in the ./errors and ./errors/default directories - page.phtml is what contains the default error page. Style as you see fit.