Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

gorgonzola · Jul 19, 2002, 11:12 AM

If you're experiencing hanging on Internet Explorer 5.x in Mac OS X while reading MacNN pages, please do the following things to help us narrow down the cause of the problem. We are working with Microsoft's IE team at this point to track down the cause of the hanging more quickly, and we need some help getting some debug information they need.

(1) When IE hangs, don't force quit it. Open Terminal and type the following to find the Process ID (PID) of Internet Explorer:

<img src="http://neal.macnn.com/images/IE_sample.png" alt=" - " />

Next, type the following at the Terminal prompt: "sample [pid_of_internet_explorer] 1". It's the number right after the username (in this case, 302). That will print out some information that looks something like this:

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">[neal@mephisto:~]% sample 302 1
Sample analysis of process 302 written to file /tmp/Internet Explorer_302.sample.txt</pre><hr /></blockquote>Then run this command: cp "/tmp/Internet Explorer_302.sample.txt" ~/Desktop. The filename will not be exactly this, but replace the filename with the filename displayed in the output of 'sample'. The quotes are necessary around the path due to the space in the filename ("Internet Explorer"). The file in question will now be on your Desktop. Email that file to <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected]</a>. I'll pass it on to Microsoft, and we'll take it from there.

(2) Try this out as well. If you're using IE's browser cache feature, turn it off. Set the cache to 0 MB and clear the current cache. Then surf MacNN normally for two days or so and let us know if you experience any hangs. A number of users have informed us that this stops all hanging. We realize that this is not a permanent or reasonable solution to the problem for all users, but please try it out for a few days to help us further narrow down this bug so it can be fixed once and for all. If you're going to do this, please send the results of this test along with the sample file (explained in #1) -- we expect to get a decent number of emails, and it would help us sort through everything if we received just one email per person with all the necessary information.

If you have any questions about what is going on here, feel free to ask questions. Details of what sample is doing are available in the sample manpage, but it basically profiles an application and gives them a memory dump of where the application has been going. It's somewhat similar to what Omni's CrashReporter program creates for them.

Please help us fix this (increasingly) irritating bug, and thanks for your patience.

[ 07-19-2002, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: gorgonzola ]

Jablabla · Jul 19, 2002, 11:34 AM

I have no idea if this is the problem. But when I was using IE I noticed a degredation of performance after many weeks of use. One day I ran omni disk sweeper and found explorer was using 100's of megs for its disk cache. I mad e my cache really big but in maxed out. When I erased the cache manually a lot of my hangs and problems went away. I'm not saying this is the problem solution here but its something I found in the past that helped me.

Another problem I have with IE is that I goto sites and I sometimes I have to reload the page twice in order to get the page to properly show. ( like yahoo ...this bug forced me to migrate to Mozilla )

ericwass · Jul 19, 2002, 11:41 AM

I would love to help, especially because it happens to me all the time. But I can't make heads or tails of the example. I know nothing about Unix and am, frankly, slightly intimidated by the Terminal. I can't distinguish from the supplied image what was typed in by the user and what was the computer's reply. Also, I'm not sure what of the snapshot is specific to the computer used in the example and what can be typed into my terminal. Is there a clearer way to present this to those of us who aren't Terminal saavy, or are you just looking for responses from those people?

dopeavy · Jul 19, 2002, 11:49 AM

This is not unique to OS X. Your site hangs on load quite often in IE, wether in OS 9 or OS X. As a note, I am a web developer. I think the problem is a bad graphic that loads in the header. It often seems to hang when retrieving that header. This is not uncommon for IE or graphics. My sugesstion would be to redo the graphic images (fresh copies) or recopy them into your production directory from a backup location. Then see what the problem is. Also, check the HTML code for proper form. I do this by hand, but you may prefer dreamweaver or another tool.

lopata · Jul 19, 2002, 11:53 AM

The problem does not only affect Mac OS X. I have been experiencing hanging problems using IE under OS 9.2.

The DJ · Jul 19, 2002, 11:54 AM

Something else i have noticed about this is that always when IE freezes, it states that it was downloading a .gif file. Since i have turned my cache down i experience no more trouble with freezes.

But now some pictures are missing. On this page (composing) i.e.
big grin
roll eyes
Italics
quote

it changes sometimes, and if i choose "load image" from the context menu then they load perfectly. Might be unrelated, but i'd thought i tell you guys anyways.

DJ

gene · Jul 19, 2002, 11:56 AM

I set cache to "0" as it was mentioned elsewhere and the problem has gone away on both of my machines. Probably has something to to with reading data from cache...

SoClose · Jul 19, 2002, 12:00 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by dopeavy:
As a note, I am a web developer. I think the problem is a bad graphic that loads in the header. It often seems to hang when retrieving that header. This is not uncommon for IE or graphics.<hr /></blockquote>I completely agree with this analysis...I'd bet it's a malformed GIF or JPEG file that other browsers just happen to be a little more tolerant of.

scottiB · Jul 19, 2002, 12:17 PM

Just fired one off to you, gorgonzola.

Regarding the malformed .gif theory (which is very probable), I've never had it die on the same element. Sometimes, xxxx.gif freezes things, other times it passes right through. I'm not a web creator, so I could be way off base.

rayntosca · Jul 19, 2002, 12:21 PM

IE shouldn't hang with bad HTML, but maybe it's related to all the HTML error on the MacNN pages?

This "Post a reply" page alone has 329 errors. Just pull it up in iCab, or run it through the official validator at <a href="http://validator.w3.org" target="_blank"><http://validator.w3.org></a>. See the attached error report below. I've had to tweak it some, because the posting software doesn't like some of the tags names included.

Ray

<a href="http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=reply;f=45;t=007311" target="_blank">http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=reply;f=45;t=007311</a>
Altogether 329 errors found. Only 100 errors are listed below.
[SNIP]

[gorgonzola: removed huge paste because it was inaccurate and a pain to scroll through

]

[ 07-19-2002, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: gorgonzola ]

djc6 · Jul 19, 2002, 12:28 PM

I'm running IE 5.2.1 on OS 10.1.5 and it would lock up almost everytime I would load macnn.com. I emptied the cache, and it loaded once - with the following GIFs not being loaded: news-s.gif, reviews-n.gif, log-news-bot.gif . I then hit reload and it locked up (so I ran 'sample' and sent the output. Maybe something is wrong with those GIFs?

KidRed · Jul 19, 2002, 12:31 PM

Well, I see no issues using and <center> tags. Don't know why they would cause errors.

cwasko · Jul 19, 2002, 12:32 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by rayntosca:
IE shouldn't hang with bad HTML, but maybe it's related to all the HTML error on the MacNN pages?

This "Post a reply" page alone has 329 errors. Just pull it up in iCab, or run it through the official validator at <a href="http://validator.w3.org" target="_blank"><http://validator.w3.org></a>. See the attached error report below. I've had to tweak it some, because the posting software doesn't like some of the tags names included.<hr /></blockquote>Most pages now have tons of 'errors' in the code. Check around.

djc6 · Jul 19, 2002, 12:42 PM

Hmm, after I hit add reply on my original post I noticed a couple things... the "big grin" instant smilies picture was missing, so where all the "on2.gif" images - the lightbulbs in the forum listings signifying new messages. Reloading made those images appear. This was on my Windows XP computer running IE 6.

msuper69 · Jul 19, 2002, 12:50 PM

I get this hang problem quite often when perusing macnn. However, it's not unique to your site. It doesn't happen often but I've experienced the same problem on other sites such as cnn.

The hang is definitely related to a graphics file as the status line always shows: Receiving image (0 bytes of xx KB, 0 bytes/sec): xxx.gif.

I'll post details as requested the next time it happens.

gorgonzola · Jul 19, 2002, 01:01 PM

OK, a few clarifications.

First of all, we know that IE on 9 hangs too, but we can't get any useful information about the hanging in OS 9, so this test is just for OS X users. We're assuming that once we fix the bug it'll fix it for both, though.

Second, clarifying it for people who aren't Terminal-savvy (ericwass, this is for you). The part you type in is this:

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">ps wwwaux | grep Internet Explorer</pre><hr /></blockquote>This will produce output something like the following:

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">neal 302 0.4 9.4 98000 37144 ?? S 30:55.93
/Applications/Internet Explorer.app/Contents/MacOS/Internet Explorer
/Applications/Internet Explorer.app/Contents/MacOS/Internet Explorer -psn_0_2097153
neal 984 0.0 0.0 1112 196 std R+ 0:00.00 grep Internet</pre><hr /></blockquote>The part you're interested in is the first line (I've split the first line into three lines to make it fit with this page width) -- specifically, the "302" number (it's the second entry) above. Remember that number. Next, type this:

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">sample [insert the number from above here] 1</pre><hr /></blockquote>An example of this is in my first post. It tells you where it's dumping that stuff (something like /tmp/Internet Explorer_[that number again].sample.txt), and then just run that command above to copy it to your desktop.

If it's still unclear to you, feel free to IM me on AIM or catch me on IRC in #macnn and I'll walk you through it.

Thanks to all who have already mailed in -- please also let me know in a few days whether it's crashing at all when you turn browser cache off.

[ 07-19-2002, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: gorgonzola ]

reversi · Jul 19, 2002, 01:13 PM

The issue is with IE reading some JPEG pictures. The problem is occurring too on maccentral.com. It's not just limited to your site. It's a bug Microsoft introduced in 5.2.

alfredm · Jul 19, 2002, 01:28 PM

I've also experienced this annoying problem many times using IE for OS 9.x. I'm really surprised that this is the first time I've seen it mentioned on any Macintosh site. I've also noticed that the "hang" will often times clear itself if you leave the machine alone for a few minutes. Very strange.

scottiB · Jul 19, 2002, 01:38 PM

Small tip for the Terminal wary:

I just copied and pasted the commands into a TextEdit document, then copied and pasted them in the Terminal window (making the correct changes for PID number and name).

I fumble a lot when typing, especially when reaching for | .

Kristoff · Jul 19, 2002, 01:40 PM

Who cares?

Why do you guys use that piece of trash browser anyway?

And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.

Hawkeye_a · Jul 19, 2002, 01:45 PM

it's in ur mial. good luck. let us know when you fix it.

registered_user · Jul 19, 2002, 02:03 PM

I run !E 5.0 on OS 9.1 and I have to force quit sometimes when I load the home page.

Typically the status bar reads loading "forum-n.gif" (or other nav gif) and it always saystransferring 0 bytes of whatever the file size.

Don't know about X. Hope that helps.

slboett · Jul 19, 2002, 02:27 PM

I'm glad you guys have seen this as well...I thought I was crazy.
FWIW, it does happen, although rarely, in OmniWeb 4.1

SB

Demonhood · Jul 19, 2002, 02:29 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by reversi:
The issue is with IE reading some JPEG pictures. The problem is occurring too on maccentral.com. It's not just limited to your site. It's a bug Microsoft introduced in 5.2.<hr /></blockquote>the macnn crashing has been happening since long before 5.2 was released.

theolein · Jul 19, 2002, 02:33 PM

There is some wierd stuff in your UBB HTML. The tags have an / in them in XML manner. This looks like this : as in an XML tag without content. The <img> tags have this as well: <img src=xxxx />. Without a Doctype, does Explorer actually see these tags properly all the time?

dafish · Jul 19, 2002, 03:01 PM

I'm on NT 4, SP6a (at work, arg) and internet explorer 5.50 also seems to have this problem. The page basically times out, though, not crash the browser. This happens _most_ of the time, and pretty much only on <a href="http://www.macnn.com," target="_blank">www.macnn.com,</a> that I realize, anyway. Today, though, it seemed to load fine.

The _interesting_ thing to note though is that when it fails to load normally (on 2-3 tries) it has loaded _every_ time when piped through <a href="http://www.anonymizer.com." target="_blank">www.anonymizer.com.</a> I had initially thought it was something with windows- i.e. you were denying windows requests when the server load was high, or something like that, because I never had this problem with omniweb. I rarely use IE on the mac, so I assumed it was a mac/pc thing.

Anyway, whatever it is that is causing it to fail to load on PC (and crash on mac ie? Can someone check this?) seems to be filtered out on anonymizer.com. If that helps. I don't know what they strip out.
-Fish

Jeffrey Carl · Jul 19, 2002, 03:17 PM

A quick note on the Unix side of things ... and I hope this makes things clearer rather than foggier for terminal-shy folks. Unless I'm missing something, it shouldn't be necessary to type "ps wwwaux" (in Unix, repeating 'switches' [options or arguments to commandline applications] rarely does anything). You should just be able to type "ps waux" (with the a, u, x and w in any order), with the rest of the command as shown. You can alternatively type "ps -auxw" if you're strictly obeying conventional syntax, but ps will let you get by without the dash.

shastaX · Jul 19, 2002, 03:31 PM

FINALLY! Frankly, I can't believe you're just now noticing this and/or trying to fix the problem. This has been a problem for at least a year, if not longer. I thought it was just me for the longest time, but then I started to see the problem on multiple Macs. I'm so familiar with the problem, that here are some observations I've noted:

The site only used to freeze on the regular home page (www.macnn.com) and not the OS X page (osx.macnn.com). However, in the past few weeks (I wish I could be more specific), now the OS X page will crash as well. Is there some element that was on the home page that you only recently introduced to the OS X page?

The problem happens frequently in any versions of IE for OS 9 or OS X, but an above poster is also right when they say the problem does indeed happen in OmniWeb. The problem *never* happens in Mozilla. That might suggest a javascript problem?

I visit your site 6 or 7 times a day, and I can count on the freeze happening at least one of those times. But that also indicates the problem is *sporadic*. Why would it only happen *sometimes* on the same machine, with the same browser? That might suggest that the problem is dependent on how *your* pages change throughout the day. Your daily changes are new news postings and a subsequent forum count if you let us comment on the news. So, could the freeze be related to posting or comment count updating? Could it be that when someone hits your site while either is being updated that the crash occurs? Is their some kind of server rotation of images or ads that appear on the page, and the browser only crashes when a particular image ad comes up in the rotation? That would also explain why it's sporadic.

I happened to be running top in terminal when it happened one time, and I noticed that IE's memory usage jumped extremely high when the crash happened (and stayed that way until I force quit), my PB G4's high speed fan comes on, and the spinning rainbow is always persistent in the app (I always notice the last two).

I'm not so sure that an image is to blame for the problem because I have all banner ads and even images not from the same server blocked in OmniWeb, which pretty much prevents most of the images on your pages from loading. Yet, the freeze still happens.

Oh, and despite what a previous poster said, the problem does not "go away" if you "leave it alone." A force quit is the only solution.

I will definitely supply the technical info you requested above the next time it happens. I am *very* eager to get this fixed because I love visiting these pages so much. Actually, I think you're very brave to ask us for help with the problem (even if it took a long time for you to ask)--many web sites would just continue to blame it on user confiuguration. Thanks MacNN!

wingdo · Jul 19, 2002, 04:05 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by reversi:
The issue is with IE reading some JPEG pictures. The problem is occurring too on maccentral.com. It's not just limited to your site. It's a bug Microsoft introduced in 5.2.<hr /></blockquote>It's not a bug introduced in 5.2. A large number of people including myself have been experiencing this problem since 5.1.x.

wingdo · Jul 19, 2002, 04:06 PM

My browser cache has been set to 0 for about two weeks. No more hangs on the forums, but lots of unloaded smilies.

Brit Ben · Jul 19, 2002, 04:22 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by gorgonzola:
OK, a few clarifications.

Second, clarifying it for people who aren't Terminal-savvy (ericwass, this is for you). The part you type in is this:

<hr /></blockquote>Copy and paste the following command into terminal:

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">( ( sample `ps wwwaux | grep Internet | head -n 1 | awk '{ print $2 }'` 1 ) > & /dev/null ) &&
mv "`ls /tmp/*.sample.txt | head -n 1`" ~/Desktop</pre><hr /></blockquote>You will end up with the file Gorgonzola needs on your desktop. Please email him that file.

For all you script junkies, yes there are neater ways, however I don't want to get into perl and other goodies here. It works.

Ben.

[gorgonzola: I split the command Ben wrote into two lines to preserve the page spacing, but RUN THE COMMAND IN ONE LINE! thanks.]

[ 07-19-2002, 07:14 PM: Message edited by: gorgonzola ]

daimoni · 01:20 AM

.

debohun · Jul 19, 2002, 05:33 PM

MSIE hangs on me routinely. It is the only non-beta problem application that I have on OS X. I've assumed it is because of one or more of the following...

I usually have 10 or more open browser windows to different sites loading at once. I'm on a slow connection, so I jump ahead to other links while already clicked links are loading.

Usually when I hang MSIE, I have just hit "Add to Scrapbook" BEFORE the page has finished loading.

I have a massive collection of scrapbook files, but since those files are not active I don't think it should be a problem.

I often suspect that Java on pages loading off one of the background browser windows may be causing the problem, especially when they try to open a window on their own. This may be related to...

As with all things Microsoft, I also suspect sloppy memory management may be involved. These freezes almost never happen until I have been using MSIE for an extended period and until I have been through several dozen sites. On a rare occasion a randomly different application sitting in the background (frequently MS Word) may outright crash WHILE I'm using MSIE in the foreground. It may be that some MS interapplication problems may be involved. Unfortunately, this also causes me to wonder if OS X application memory may not be quite as protected as advertised.

I haven't noticed this problem to be related to MacNN specifically, but since I "hang" out it here frequently suppose there might be a connection.

On the next freeze, I'll send you the details you request.

--SB

olePigeon · Jul 19, 2002, 05:44 PM

Well, you could start by fixing all the sloppy coding. An unfortunate side effect to everyone using MSIE, it doesn't care what your HTML looks like and interprates bad code instead of warning or screwing up.

In the meantime, my suggestion would be to try out Mozilla, Opera, iCab, or OmniWeb. With the exception of OmniWeb, all of which are available for Windows, MacOS 9, and MacOS X.

Palegolas · Jul 19, 2002, 06:09 PM

MacNN usually never hung for me before.

******* It ONLY hangs in the recent Photo Galleris from Mac World. *******

gorgonzola · Jul 19, 2002, 07:15 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by wingdo:
My browser cache has been set to 0 for about two weeks. No more hangs on the forums, but lots of unloaded smilies.<hr /></blockquote>This is an unrelated problem (entirely our end), but I made a few changes to the image server, and I think this problem is 100% gone now. Let me know what you see.

gorgonzola · Jul 19, 2002, 07:18 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by rayntosca:
IE shouldn't hang with bad HTML, but maybe it's related to all the HTML error on the MacNN pages?

This "Post a reply" page alone has 329 errors. Just pull it up in iCab, or run it through the official validator at <a href="http://validator.w3.org" target="_blank"><http://validator.w3.org></a>. See the attached error report below. I've had to tweak it some, because the posting software doesn't like some of the tags names included.

Ray<hr /></blockquote>I'm sure the code is not perfect, but (a) Infopop wrote that code, and we can't practically change it, and (b) it's mostly XHTML compliant, so an HTML validator would give you inaccurate information.

Sealobo · Jul 19, 2002, 07:38 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by gorgonzola:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by wingdo:
My browser cache has been set to 0 for about two weeks. No more hangs on the forums, but lots of unloaded smilies.<hr /></blockquote>This is an unrelated problem (entirely our end), but I made a few changes to the image server, and I think this problem is 100% gone now. Let me know what you see.<hr /></blockquote>My I.E (5.2) hasn't freezed in the last 8 hours browsing on MacNN. I think it's WORKING~! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Big Mac · Jul 19, 2002, 08:07 PM

I visit MacNN most extensively on my 8600, which is running the latest version of classic IE on OS 8.6. I also browse at times on my iBook running an older version of IE on OS X 10.1.2. I haven't had any freezes or unexpected quits using IE on either machine. I know this doesn't help the situation in anyway, but I just wanted to point out not everyone is having a problem.

theolein · Jul 19, 2002, 08:20 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by daimoni:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by theolein:
There is some wierd stuff in your UBB HTML. The tags have an / in them in XML manner. This looks like this : as in an XML tag without content. The <img> tags have this as well: <img src=xxxx />. Without a Doctype, does Explorer actually see these tags properly all the time?<hr /></blockquote>Welcome to the world of XHTML.

<img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/059600026X.01._PE30_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg" alt=" - " /><hr /></blockquote>I have never touched XHTML, but doesn't it require a doctype declaration all the same? And more importantly, does Explorer on the Mac actually know what XHTML is?

P.S. I gather that you people are hosted at infopop then? Or are you using the classic version of UBB? Is it written in Perl, or is it compiled or what? Sounds like a bummer if one can't go muck with the code in an emergency. Perhaps they'll do an Apple on you guys and ask for a subscription fee in the future?

andi*pandi · Jul 19, 2002, 10:45 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr /> Explorer on the Mac actually know what XHTML is?<hr /></blockquote>not being a coder I don't about the rest, but I've prepared some pages for xml and yes, IE for Mac does know XML... in fact, it's the only free XML validator we could find to use. :err

<a href="http://www.massmed.org/cme" target="_blank">http://www.massmed.org/cme</a>

(all xml compliant, all tested on IE)

TNproud2b · Jul 20, 2002, 12:38 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by theolein:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by daimoni:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by theolein:
There is some wierd stuff in your UBB HTML. The tags have an / in them in XML manner. This looks like this : as in an XML tag without content. The <img> tags have this as well: <img src=xxxx />. Without a Doctype, does Explorer actually see these tags properly all the time?<hr /></blockquote>Welcome to the world of XHTML.

<img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/059600026X.01._PE30_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg" alt=" - " /><hr /></blockquote>I have never touched XHTML, but doesn't it require a doctype declaration all the same? And more importantly, does Explorer on the Mac actually know what XHTML is?

P.S. I gather that you people are hosted at infopop then? Or are you using the classic version of UBB? Is it written in Perl, or is it compiled or what? Sounds like a bummer if one can't go muck with the code in an emergency. Perhaps they'll do an Apple on you guys and ask for a subscription fee in the future?<hr /></blockquote>Infopop isn't a webhosting service - they make the UBB software.

There is already a subscription fee that allows 'upgrades and access to technical support'.

Their newest version is called 'UBB Threads' (uses my sql, I believe). It's much more robust than this version of UBB.

[ 07-20-2002, 12:39 AM: Message edited by: TNproud2b ]

theolein · Jul 20, 2002, 04:33 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by andi*pandi:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr /> Explorer on the Mac actually know what XHTML is?<hr /></blockquote>not being a coder I don't about the rest, but I've prepared some pages for xml and yes, IE for Mac does know XML... in fact, it's the only free XML validator we could find to use. :err

<a href="http://www.massmed.org/cme" target="_blank">http://www.massmed.org/cme</a>

(all xml compliant, all tested on IE)<hr /></blockquote>Andi, XHTML is not really XML, but a subset thereof. i.e. it's defined by XML.

theolein · Jul 20, 2002, 04:45 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by gorgonzola:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by rayntosca:
IE shouldn't hang with bad HTML, but maybe it's related to all the HTML error on the MacNN pages?

This "Post a reply" page alone has 329 errors. Just pull it up in iCab, or run it through the official validator at <a href="http://validator.w3.org" target="_blank"><http://validator.w3.org></a>. See the attached error report below. I've had to tweak it some, because the posting software doesn't like some of the tags names included.

Ray<hr /></blockquote>I'm sure the code is not perfect, but (a) Infopop wrote that code, and we can't practically change it, and (b) it's mostly XHTML compliant, so an HTML validator would give you inaccurate information.<hr /></blockquote>XHTML needs a doctype declaration at the top according to the w3c.org. Perhaps you could drop infopop a line on this. In Mozilla I never have problems here, but IE used to hang on occaision.

It might be some esoteric caching problem, but the caches work differently on the Classic IE and on the OSX IE. Well, on OSX the cache is subject to the permissions system.

It is well known that IE is very tolerant, to the point of being exploitable, of bad HTML. The code is NOT XHTML compliant at the moment. XHTML needs a) a Doctype and b)stuff like and <center> are not in the Doctype.

It most often seems to hang with respect to images. UBB uses PNG's in some of the images. PNG's are not supported in IE on the Mac AFAIK. And it often seems unable to load an image, which it then waits for.

theolein · Jul 20, 2002, 04:57 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by TNproud2b:
Infopop isn't a webhosting service - they make the UBB software.

There is already a subscription fee that allows 'upgrades and access to technical support'.

Their newest version is called 'UBB Threads' (uses my sql, I believe). It's much more robust than this version of UBB.<hr /></blockquote>Mmmm...according their <a href="http://www.infopop.com/webhosting/" target="_blank">site</a> they do in fact do webhosting. Looking at the quality, speed and price of UBB, I can imagine that their webhosting is more lucrative than UBB. UBB.threads has been rewritten in PHP and MySQL. Considering that one has to pay $$$ for this, one might instead be inclined to take a walk to <a href="http://sourceforge.net" target="_blank">Sourceforge</a> or <a href="http://freshmeat.net" target="_blank">Freshmeat</a> and type in the word "forum" into the search boxes. Things like PHPBB and www forum etc come to mind.

Frederico · Jul 20, 2002, 05:27 AM

Sorry to tell you this, but it's still not fixed as of 03:17MST. Ironically, I got hung while trying to access this forum thread again to check for any progress; as per usual, it was a 'loading 0 bytes / 0 Kb/sec xxxx.gif' error.

Thanks for finally getting after this. I've sent more than one complaint about it in the past six months; I'm glad you're finally seeing the pattern and acting on it. When on OS X, it's no bid deal; force quit and relaunch IE; on Legacy OS, it makes the whole machine too unstable to risk even coming to your site. My audio geeks still stuck on 9 will appreciate your fixing this.

Stack error report in email as requested.

Synotic · Jul 20, 2002, 05:35 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by TNproud2b:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by theolein:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by daimoni:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by theolein:
There is some wierd stuff in your UBB HTML. The tags have an / in them in XML manner. This looks like this : as in an XML tag without content. The <img> tags have this as well: <img src=xxxx />. Without a Doctype, does Explorer actually see these tags properly all the time?<hr /></blockquote>Welcome to the world of XHTML.

<img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/059600026X.01._PE30_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg" alt=" - " /><hr /></blockquote>I have never touched XHTML, but doesn't it require a doctype declaration all the same? And more importantly, does Explorer on the Mac actually know what XHTML is?

P.S. I gather that you people are hosted at infopop then? Or are you using the classic version of UBB? Is it written in Perl, or is it compiled or what? Sounds like a bummer if one can't go muck with the code in an emergency. Perhaps they'll do an Apple on you guys and ask for a subscription fee in the future?<hr /></blockquote>Infopop isn't a webhosting service - they make the UBB software.

There is already a subscription fee that allows 'upgrades and access to technical support'.

Their newest version is called 'UBB Threads' (uses my sql, I believe). It's much more robust than this version of UBB.<hr /></blockquote>Noting that you don't have to say &lt; and &gt; as HTML isn't allowed and it does that for you.. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

If you use OpenTopic (I think that's what it's called) then they host it for you and you have to talk to them if you want anything modified.

[osX]RTouris · Jul 20, 2002, 11:42 AM

Just adding my experience here so far. For me it's not the MacNN page that hangs IE 5.1.5 under OS 9.2.2, but rather the MacNN forums page. Changes are 60/40 that upon clicking on the favorite, IE will hang with the spinning black and white cross wheel rotating for ever.

[osX]RTouris · Jul 20, 2002, 12:35 PM

Just adding my experience here so far. For me it's not the MacNN page that hangs IE 5.1.5 under OS 9.2.2, but rather the MacNN forums page. Changes are 60/40 that upon clicking on the favorite, IE will hang with the spinning black and white cross wheel rotating for ever.

The DJ · Jul 20, 2002, 12:36 PM

As to the image server fix:

crashes: don't know i have my cache at 0
unloaded images: I'm still missing several smilies here. This is completly random.

DJ