Are You Using FireFox on Windows?

I’ve been doing that all along. The real question is why anyone is still using the massively unsecure Windows Internet Explorer?

I don’t find that works but refresh and they all appear every time!

I find that the vanished comments reappear if I right click on them with mouse.  That is simple enough for me.  Thanks.

On my lo-res screen, it doesn’t work, unless I refresh, which is why I tempt fate and use IE 6 for most except e-mail.

I’ll try it when it happens again, like MerseyMike, I just refresh the page but it IS annoying.

Finally, Mike, something of which we both agree.

Greg,

I timed out on my home dial-up account (not uncommon, stops somewhere around comment 150, refresh and often it loads the whole thing), but once loaded I did not have the problem.

Often, I experience what you referenced when I click a comment on the sidebar, (so ht…index.php/site/article/3869/#70027 might have the issue) but if I edit it down to just the article (...ite/article/3869/) the problem vanishes and I can scroll down to message I desire.

I have had the same issue with IE, but much rarer (often I’ll go to IE if I just can’t get Firefox to work), but I’ve had it there too. Lost time problem with IE was Truro property thread with Tom Woodward and William Witt bantering quite a bit. However I’ve been able to read WO thread one using my trick of taking the comment # out (though at times I still time out at the house).

Hopefully that gives you some concrete stuff to look at even if I’m remembering this in the abstract.

I’ve been experiencing this for some time (Win2k, latest Ffx).  Apparently either the page formatting table is being sent before the database provides the contents (comment text) or Firefox falls behind in its screen updating.  The same sort of thing seems to happen in the normal (file) Explorer with large folders of images when you hit “view/thumbnails” and scroll down rapidly.

Sometimes simply waiting fills in the boxes.  “Refresh” may work because many of the early comments can be grabbed from the cache.

It doesn’t happen in Linux, by the way, either with Firefox or Konqueror (or Iceweasel).

(On another tech note, the occasional blockquote failure can in my experience be avoided by using square brackets instead of angles to surround the tag—

  No idea why; these comments go through many, many hands before they finally appear.)

I can understand, French, some Spanish, most English, can work my way through Hebrew and the simpler Greek…  whats a Firefox?  Wasn’t that what Sampson used to get back at the Philistines?   I have not experienced any troubles with my archaic windows…

I use Firefox and used to have this problem. I did an upgrade to the latest version a couple weeks ago and have not had the problem since.

Just FYI, Greg, this problem looks like it’s OS-independent.  Firefox messes with the comments on my little Mac mini as badly as it does on my wife’s Windows laptop.

Mac users who don’t know about it can download the Camino web browser to correct this effect—it’s based on the same engine as Firefox but without some of the bells and whistles.  For some reason, it doesn’t seem to chew up the comments like Firefox does.

And of course, everybody in the Windows and Mac worlds can use Apple’s Safari browser these days….  (Note to WIndows folks:  Remember that the current version of Safari for you guys is a public beta.)

On long (say 100+) StandFirm threads I have found on all of the pc’s I use that it takes a while for posts lower down the page to show, but eventually they all appear without any fine-tuning by me.  Useful to know, though.

When I role over the scrollbar “thumb”, the text is restored, as you promised!  Thx!  I didn’t know about that little trick.

Greg, I don’t have the problem anymore in the 2.0.0.4 version of Firefox, although I’ve had it previously.

So, mark it as “unable to duplicate” on the latest version or “works on my machine”.

Can you tell I do this for a living?

It doesn’t happen in Linux, by the way, either with Firefox or Konqueror (or Iceweasel).

Something else I like about Craig Goodrich.

I think it is because the people who wrote Firefox support anti-biblical world veiws. That’s what I think and God is punishing the users!!!!

Greg,
I had no problems but Iam runnning on an HP Pavilian dv5215 Notebook PC! I was able to read all blockquoted comments.

It has been an issue in some threads in the past but hasn’t been here of late. Thanks!

Sweet!  It worked like a charm!
I’ve been having this problem on both my work machine (which is a DOG running W2K) and my home machine running XP Home.  The “fix” I used was to skip to the end of the page [ctrl]+[END] and then using [PageUp] back to the “blank” spots.  I may have used the scroll-control to navigate back up (which is probably the case) - and THAT is probably what did the trick.  Thanks for solving that annoying problem!

I DO have the problem with 2.0.0.4 version of Firefox - if I scroll down too quickly.  If I do it slowly, no problem.  If once I scroll down quickly, I then go back up or down very quickly, the page refreshes with the boxes completed.  So I AM able to duplicate the problem Paul B, sorry!  Yet it’s not exactly serious, and there is a workaround! 

Just to poke some fun.  I don’t have any problems like this as I run the Linux OS at home.

FWIW - It seems to me (non-empirically speaking) that I am more likely to encounter the blank-box condition when I try to scroll down the comments before Firefox has completely loaded the page.  Perhaps all we need is just a bit more patience.

Also FWIW (and off-topic to boot) - I use Windoze for simple stuff like email and web browsing.  I use Linux when I have actual work to get done. 

I don’t know about “firefox”, but I often have the problem with netscape 7.2.  (do not tell me to upgrade, its about all this computer can handle”..

Have tried the ‘refresh”, and Greg’s trick, but neither worked.  Also, the blank (in this case grey) windows started BEFORE the comments.  Sometimes, all I get are little line spaces for the comments.

Never worried about it much, but now that you mention it..

it is an intermitent problem, and it could be related to your memory use.  I’m still ME on this one, but if viewing a whole lot of graphics, pics, catalogs, etc, I sometimes have to stop and reboot the browser.

Hope this gives someone a clue, cause I’m totally at a loss on the problem..
Grannie gloria

I have the problem less since the latest Firefox upgrade, but hitting the refresh button fixes it quickly when it does happen.

I use Safari on my apple and have dialup…long threads stop around 150 and I can’t get them to go any further…

Greg, yes, what you suggests works for me.  I’m on Windows XP, Firefox 2.0.0.4.  And I had been having the problem viewing long threads.  Had been in the habit of just automatically opening Explorer when I knew there was a long thread to read.  Nice to not have to do that now, thanks

Windows XP Professional.

No empty comment boxes, other than the one I’m typing in now.

Well, from home, on my old fashioned 56 k modem I can’t get either thread to load fully- I get about 1/2 the messages.  Doesn’t matter which browser I use.  Later in the evening I can often get the long threads to load in there entirety, so I suspect it has something to do with the server or router at this end as well as my slow connection.
When I do get the blank window thing on firefox it usually clears itself up in a few seconds, not sure if it has anything to do with where I place the cursor.  If I scroll up from a blank I will usually meet the type on the way down.  I would speculate that firefox loads page elements in a different order than IE- and is loading the type last.
TJ

This is God punishing you all for abandoning DOS!

I’m using Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Windows XP (service pack 2), and I did see the “blank boxes” when I went to the two example long thrreads.  Mousing over the “slider” on the side caused the text to appear, just as advertised.

A related note:  If I used the key to go to the bottom of the thread, the text does not appear until I mouse over that side bar.  On the other hand, left-clicking on that slider and pulling it down to get to the bottom of the thread causes the text to appear as soon as I release the mouse button.

As an aside, I viewed the same threads using Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.11 without the same problem (of course) ... but the threads took much longer to load.

Maybe someone should document this and send it over to Mozilla as a bug report?

Good find!

Charles Maggs

Like someone above I only ever seem to have this problem if I scroll down really quickly—which I usually only do if everyone’s comments are .. boring .. so I don’t have it that often!

This is truly a sad and dark thread. I must go somewhere else.

Bed.

Pageantmaster:

Actually these threads are the ones TEC likes best - really not that important, have nothing to do with Jesus, and no one is really invested.  I’m surprised Episcope hasn’t taken it up as it’s leading story!

Breaking:  StandFirm has problems with Threads because of Firefox Use!

Just to throw a plug in for Opera.  I’ve never had such a problem with long threads. And it’s fairly fast.  It seems to do some things well which Firefox doesn’t.  And Firefox does some things well which Opera doesn’t.

Les

Freedom! Yes, I am a Debian/GNU/Linux user and advocate. I am disappointed that so many Christians are still using the massively unsecure Windows (of various flavors and versions). Debian has a branded version of Firefox called Iceweasel and the K Desktop Environment (KDE) comes with an all purpose browser called Konqueror. Konqueror handles Stand Firm just fine, it doesn’t do Java or JavaScript well. That is when I switch to Iceweasel/Firefox.

Switch now or later!

Okay—I take it back.  Firefox is showing empty comment boxes all over the place tonight.  But Greg—your little put the pointer on the scroll button works faster than hitting the refresh button.  Thanks for the tip!

We are running Firefox and I have no problem with empty boxes, except when scrolling down on these two long threads there were a few, but as soon as I took my finger off the mouse the words appeared.

I opened the Women’s Ordination thread on Firefox on my MacBook and could not see any of the comments, nor did your suggestion work.  Mostly I have no trouble with Firefox in opening things up on Stand Firm, though I use Safari most frequently.  Any other Mac users with the same Firefox problem?

I opened the Women’s Ordination thread on Firefox on my MacBook and could not see any of the comments, nor did your suggestion work.  Mostly I have no trouble with Firefox in opening things up on Stand Firm, though I use Safari most frequently.  Any other Mac users with the same Firefox problem?

hanks, yes. I usually only use firefox if i need to use a m******** box, so i actually updated to firefox 2.xxxx and found that the old 1.5 worked better. for the long wo thread 2. no problem with other sf threads as long as they are not very long threads. i usually use safari. i decided to try opera (fwiw), another one that i rarely use on this computer. and it works better than firefox for the long thread. i have installed opera 5 tho, not 7. and it lists the “open threads/news” as a list. I guess i’d update it just for standfirm, except that i usually use safari. and safari just works, on a mac.

I use XP with service pack 2 enabled and firefox 2.  with the problem but refresh.  I also have the problem on my PDA running windows mobile 2003 (IPAQ 3955) and refresh.

Hanks:  I wouldn’t open the WO thread on anything less than Camino if you paid me.  Somehow, Camino doesn’t mangle the threads on me like Firefox does on my Mac mini despite their common use of Gecko.  I never understood that.  Of course, I made Safari my default despite its beta status the other day.  Works like a charm for me.

I had other problems with FireFox, so do not use it.

I can understand, French, some Spanish, most English, can work my way through Hebrew and the simpler Greek… whats a Firefox? 

It’s a 1982 movie starring Clint Eastwood as a Vietnam veteran pilot who has to go into the USSR and steal a top-secret mach-6 fighter plane - the MiG 31 ‘Firefox’. It has thought-activated weapons systems, but to use them you must think in Russian…

Greg,

Your suggested method doesn’t work on my rig, running Windows 98SE. Mozilla needs to do some work on Firefox. Reload works for a few seconds—posts appear at the top of the screen, then are gray-ed out again. Repeated Reloads make no difference.

Another oddity: Even though I click on the right-hand comments side of the screen, when I scroll up or down, it’s ALWAYS the lefthand column that scrolls UNTIL that column no longer has any text. Then the scrolling switches to the righthand column, and the remainder of the posts eventually come into view.

r.w.

r.w.,
if a mozilla (mozilla) version is avaiable, you might try that. i will try to look later.

Greg,
Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Windows XP Home (Service Pack 2). Your technique worked fine.  I had not had this problem before (or had not noticed it). I tend to cancel out of really long threads due to sensory overload! 

rw—Win98SE

I just ran a test on the wife’s Win98SE machine and sure enough, FireFox behaves as you say.  Unfortunately, so does Mozilla, in spite of the fact that the FireFox rendering engine is supposedly streamlined and rewritten.

Apple’s Safari is available only for XP and Vista, which is a pity since its renderer is (IIRC) based on the HTML library of Konqueror, the web and file browser originally written for Linux’ KDE desktop.

I just got the latest [url=“http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/The_Swedish_Chef”>Opera</a> and installed it on my Win2k machine.  It doesn’t have the Firefox comment-lag problem and is quite full-featured.  I’ll test it on 98 as soon as my teenage daughter can be pried away from her virtual-catbreeding site.

I last looked at Opera several years ago; it was quite good then.  At that time someone had discovered that Microsoft, in one of its typical tactics to insure against cracks in its empire, had its MSN site software specifically check for the presence of Opera and if it found it, purposely mis-set page margins, table sizes, and so on to convince the user that Opera was misrendering the site.  The guys at Opera, which is headquartered in Oslo, thought this was rather a dirty trick (which of course it was) and promptly produced a version of Opera which behaved quite normally unless you visited MSN.  When it loaded MSN, it a) told the server that it was Internet Explorer, and b) translated all text on the site into the dialect of the Muppet Show’s <a ]Swedish chef[/url] character.  It was hilarious.  Unfortunately that version is no longer available at the Opera download site…

<hr width=50% align=center>
Much later: Tested Opera on W95SE—no oddities, the comments all appear normally on the monster threads.

Give it a try, rw, it looks like a winner.  Download from opera.com .