Translation handler continuous loop problem

[Sinclair, Alan (CORP, GEAccess)]

I am hoping someone might have a clue on how to resolve this awkward
problem.

I have just installed a mod_perl URI translation handler to extract a
session id from the URI. In general the translation works correctly by
removing the session id from the URL when detected. However, a Netscape
browser client triggers Apache to enter a continuous loop if I do not
specify the domain name in the hostname component of the URL. The problem
does not occur in Internet Explorer (that surprised me.) 

All these examples are from Nestcape on both NT and Unix.
For example, say I enter http://lions.access.com/sp9/outage.html  The
translation handler works correctly.
If I then enter: http://lions/sp9/outage.html  There is a continuous loop in
Apache and on each iteration, an entry is written to access_log. I have to
stop the request in Netscape.

The bizarre thing is I can enter any other URL such as
http://lions/internal/whatever and there is no problem. The mod_perl
translation header goal is stripping session id info from the URL in the
form http://hostname/SESSION_ID/sp9/whatever It looks for sp9 in the path. I
have attempted to debug by trying to send error messages to the error log
without success. 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can determine why the translation
handler is entering into a continuous loop when a request is sent from
Netscape?

I would be appreciative of any help!!

Env is: Solaris 2.6  Apache 1.3.14  mod_perl 1.24_01