unexpected result of use badhttp:

["Paul Bliss" <pbliss (at) techvalleycom.com>]

Dear administrators, groups, and others, 

When I have the line in bb-hosts:
10.0.0.254   www.server.net              # ssh:35000 smtp pop3 imap2 http://www.server.net badhttp:3:4:10

and for some reason this server keeps coming up as HTTP timeout. Initially I implemented this use of badhttp: to try to escape a problem with false outages, but even with this set up I'm still having trouble.

What makes me think that something isn't going on right is that badhttp:3:4:10 should turn clear after 3 failures, yellow after 4, and red after 10 (I've tried different values from 5 through 10), but still the server turns up red without passing through the other stages.

 Does badhttp: work differently than I expect it to?

Has anyone else had similar experience or have any suggestions?

thanks in advance,
Paul