never ending throbber

I know it sounds like the name of an "interesting" movie, but I'm
referring to the Firefox page completion status throbber. On some sites
(most interestingly on some sites I'm working on) the throbber seems to
go on forever. Ten minutes after the page completed it's still not at
100%. I've seen this logged in the bugzilla DB for Firefox dozens of
times and fixed for dozens of scenarios but it's still a problem for
some sites.

If you look with Firebug at the page assets, you see the load times of
each of the files on the page and it shows that all are complete. So
Firebug thinks that the page should be marked complete, because it
doesn't think there are any outstanding files to be downloaded. I don't
see why Firefox itself doesn't know, considering that it provides
Firebug with all the information it has.

Are there any known DHTML practices that can lead to this situation
(e.g. eval'ing script into existence, dynamically adding elements (DIV,
SCRIPT) to the DOM before the page is complete, or after the page is
complete, or loading an image into a JavaScript Image object (for the
purposes of implementing a tracking ping) ?

Are there any workarounds that can be done from JavaScript?

I know of some big sites that are currently escaping (blocking) Firefox
because of this and providing it with a "classic" experience.

~dd

d d wrote:[color=blue]
> I know it sounds like the name of an "interesting" movie, but I'm
> referring to the Firefox page completion status throbber. On some sites
> (most interestingly on some sites I'm working on) the throbber seems to
> go on forever. Ten minutes after the page completed it's still not at
> 100%. I've seen this logged in the bugzilla DB for Firefox dozens of
> times and fixed for dozens of scenarios but it's still a problem for
> some sites.
>
> If you look with Firebug at the page assets, you see the load times of
> each of the files on the page and it shows that all are complete. So
> Firebug thinks that the page should be marked complete, because it
> doesn't think there are any outstanding files to be downloaded. I don't
> see why Firefox itself doesn't know, considering that it provides
> Firebug with all the information it has.[/color]

In Konqueror, which displays "xx items of yy loaded" while the page is
loading, I often notice that the "yy" number doesn't immediately reach its
final value; it keeps going up for some time. I think IE has the same display,
but there are more sites that treat IE differently than Firefox than they do
Konqueror.
[color=blue]
>
> Are there any known DHTML practices that can lead to this situation
> (e.g. eval'ing script into existence, dynamically adding elements (DIV,
> SCRIPT) to the DOM before the page is complete, or after the page is
> complete, or loading an image into a JavaScript Image object (for the
> purposes of implementing a tracking ping) ?[/color]

I don't know; I know zilch about JS.
[color=blue]
>
> Are there any workarounds that can be done from JavaScript?[/color]

Once you think the page is actually complete, the "classical" workaround is to
click the "Stop" button. That's not Javascript however.

You may also want to filter about:config on "timeout" (without the quotes of
course) and see if any of those prefs' names rings a bell.
[color=blue]
>
> I know of some big sites that are currently escaping (blocking) Firefox
> because of this and providing it with a "classic" experience.
>
> ~dd[/color]


Best regards,
Tony.
--
"Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have
taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an
excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature."
-- Samuel Johnson

d d wrote:
[color=blue]
> I know it sounds like the name of an "interesting" movie, but I'm[/color]

Looks like a great Subject header for a typical piece of spam. :)


--
Blinky RLU 297263
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: [url]http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html[/url]

Blinky the Shark wrote:[color=blue]
> d d wrote:[color=green]
>> I know it sounds like the name of an "interesting" movie, but I'm[/color]
> Looks like a great Subject header for a typical piece of spam. :)[/color]

It does indeed. It worked though. You and Tony both read it ;-)

~dd

Tony Mechelynck wrote:[color=blue]
> You may also want to filter about:config on "timeout" (without the
> quotes of course) and see if any of those prefs' names rings a bell.[/color]

Good idea. It might spark an idea that could trigger a particular
investigation that finds out what these sites are doing that's causing
the problem, then they can stop doing it :)

I was hoping this post might catch the eye of one of the developers of
Firefox that's dealt with throbber issues and might have some general
guidelines of things that can make the throbber unhappy.

~dd

Blinky the Shark wrote:[color=blue]
> d d wrote:
>[color=green]
>> I know it sounds like the name of an "interesting" movie, but I'm[/color]
>
> Looks like a great Subject header for a typical piece of spam. :)[/color]

If it lasts for over 4 hours consult your doctor.

--
Oregano, n.:
The ancient Italian art of pizza folding.

On 7/12/2007 7:45 AM Rinaldi J. Montessi inquired:
[color=blue]
> Blinky the Shark wrote:[color=green]
>> d d wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> I know it sounds like the name of an "interesting" movie, but I'm[/color]
>>
>> Looks like a great Subject header for a typical piece of spam. :)[/color]
>
> If it lasts for over 4 hours consult your doctor.
>[/color]
:)

Rinaldi J. Montessi wrote:
[color=blue]
> Blinky the Shark wrote:[color=green]
>> d d wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> I know it sounds like the name of an "interesting" movie, but[/color][/color][/color]
I'm[color=blue][color=green]
>>
>> Looks like a great Subject header for a typical piece of spam.[/color][/color]
:)[color=blue]
>
> If it lasts for over 4 hours consult your doctor.[/color]

Right. Hey, should everything I see have a bluish cast?


--
Blinky
Killfiling all posts from Google Groups
Details: [url]http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html[/url]