UPDATE: 3/11 see the experiment I’m trying above.
In the last couple of days, I’ve gotten several notes from people complaining they have trouble reading WUWT. See sample provided by a reader at left. It seems to make some posts go all caps and small washed out font.
I have no control over this as I’m hosted on the free wordpress.com web service and they constantly upgrade their platform with the latest updates. I suspect some recent upgrade has created a browser incompatibility with older browsers.
Again, I have no control over this, but I do have suggestions.
I’ve traced the problem I believe, so let me offer what I think is a solution. If you are one of those folks that refuses to upgrade from ancient browsers like IE6 and run on 512MB of memory on XP service pack 1, then there’s nothing I can do to help you.
The problem seems centric to IE8 and Windows XP systems, though does seem to show up slightly on IE8 with Windows 7.
I run Firefox, latest version, and never see any of the issues described. I also run Chrome, latest version with no trouble. May I suggest readers having problems try these?
The latest version of Java might also help, as would be upgrades to latest service packs and patches, etc. if you have not done so. Older machines running Windows XP would also benefit from browser upgrades, and would run better especially if you can increase RAM memory. What typically happens in large posts with a lot of comments is that the user can’t load it all due to memory limitations. I’ve found that 2GB RAM in Windows XP is the sweet spot. Memory is cheap these days, and is your best bank for buck performance upgrade.
While it would be nice if I had complete control over all the web elements and server side things, it would mean I’d have even less time for myself since I’d have to manage my own server, and then I’d be having posts on BOTS and HTAcess like Lucia has been doing lately. The trade off given the traffic volume that WUWT handles is more than worth a few upgrade glitches than can be solved by keeping up with the latest browsers and OS patches. This is why we moved Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit off a private server to wordpress.com, because keeping CA up and running on high traffic was difficult.
Of course if somebody has solved the problem themselves by some other means I have not thought of, please advise.
Thanks for your consideration – Anthony
No problems with Safari 5.0.5 and Mac OS 10.6.8.
Camino 2.1.1 (a Mozilla browser aimed at Mac users, though Firefox runs fine on Macs, too) reads WUWT well.
Anthony, I doubt you can find a PC equivalent in specs to a given Mac model for “1/3 the cost”. Maybe 2/3 if you scrounge around the refurbs. And remember to factor in the higher cost of anti-virus software, expensive licensing, and more frequent maintenance and replacement. Just ask any IT people about the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of PCs vs. Macs.
/Mr Lynn
Only read a few comments and not happy – we are totally up-to-date with all XP and IE8 and have lots of memory, thank you very much trolls!! Was working fine yesterday but not today….. sorry Anthony, but refuse to switch browsers just because your website is not working anymore.
Unfortunately will stop reading.
I am running Firefox 10.02 via Windows 7 Ultimate (6.1 build 7601) on a Bulldozer 8 core cpu running at 3.9Ghz with 16GB of 1800mhz RAM with a tri-SLI gpu solution.
I understand that this is not in the slightest bit helpful to anyone who is experiencing these formatting issues on WordPress but I just wanted to mention it because dudes, my new PC is a beast!
(sorry ;))
At risk of adding to the workload, “latest comments” have disappeared from the sidebar.
Just an FYI.
REPLY: Removed on purpose, they go by so fast, not really useful -A
It sounds to me like Anthony is being hacked. If Climate Audit is having the same issues you can bet someone is messing with codes.
I’m right up to date but the other machine on my desk has Win 98 with Borland Turbo C. I only mention this because confession is good for the soul. I love Visual Studio but I can still write Z80 in machine code. Time to 76h before I incriminate myself.
Chromebook – no problems. And wondrous swift …
Typed too soon – problem is back.
“REPLY: Removed on purpose, they go by so fast, not really useful -A”
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I don’t know, I might have to respectfully disagree.
I usually look at it to gauge the flow of comments/ lively threads.
FWIW.
The problem appears to be associated with the “GA_Google fill slot”, which allows Google adds to be inserted into the web page.
If the advertisement is inserted, everything is OK. If the advertisement fails to appear, the text following this advertisement space is corrupted. (The problem is intermittent).
IE8, IE9 and IE10 have a compatibility button to allow sites specifically written for IE7 and earlier browsers to be displayed correctly in the newer releases of IE.
Using the IE compatibility button ( to the left of the refresh and stop buttons), resolves the web coding issue and displays the text correctly.
Keep up the good work!
Running WinXP SP2, Firefox 10.0.2 with 4Gb memory (WinXP reports 3.84Gb) and everything is good. No problems whatsoever.
REPLY: Removed on purpose, they go by so fast, not really useful -A
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Couldn’t disagree more…..it’s the second thing I check every time
There’s certain people I like to see what they are saying….I check there first, so I can go to the thread and read it………….
I have encountered this issue on my work PC (Win 7 running IE8) every time it has occured a simple page refresh has fixed the problem.
Thankfully I use Firefox at home so haven’t seen it there.
Anthony
I was thinking of sending you a message regarding the new font and how it has caused readability issues but refrained from doing this since I thought that it may be a server issue beyond your control so I thought that I would wait a bit to see what happened. I run XP and IE8 and noticed the problem for the first time I think on Wednesday. This current post doesn’t seem to have any problems so may be WordPress have carried out a further update.
I appreciate the tips. It is good of you to pass these on.
I don’t like Google because of privacy issues so I will not be using Chrome (although I suspect that all browsers have similar snooping software and data keeping issues so it is no doubt niaive to distrust solely Google). If I encounter further difficulties, I will try Firefox. I know that it has many followers.
I can confirm the behaviour that Darren Watts describes… if the ad is there from Google services, the text that follows is fine. Ironically, the ad that is currently loading is for “FONTS”.
This is obviously a WordPress issue.
It has started at the same time for loads of different users using different systems. It is not a coincidence!
I am running on Windows Vista with 4GB of memory and the fonts are all over the place.
Alan
The small faint caps issue seems to happen intermittently and i see it on both Win 7 pro with all updates applied running IE8 with all available updates (my employers banking application does not support IE9) and another machine XP running IE8 so it seems the common thread may be IE8.
I would suggest up to 30% of your readers my use IE8 so expect your stats to decline a little if the problem isnt fixed and they might come back if they upgrade at some point in the future (if they understand the problem). Only a portion of your readers will change browser is the reality – this includes me btw 🙂 .
A while back I stopped trying to view WUWT using IE9 due to formatting problems. It worked in Firefox but not IE9. I haven’t checked it a while but after reading this I did – and it works! Everything looks normal again.
So what ever the change was it may have broken it for some and fixed it for others.
Small grey caps in the Comments section are extremely hard to read. Just noticed it today. I haven’t logged into WUWT from my work computer for a while, but its a Saturday, so I “digressed”.
My work PC is running Vista 6.0 and IE7 with no chance of upgrade until the entire organization upgrades…oh well, maybe I will get more work done! 😉
Hmmm…as soon as I posted my comment above, everything miraculously changed to a nice, normal, Times New Roman font!
Sorry Darren… I meant Darren Watt. I found the compatibility view option on my browser under the “Tools” menu. Selecting that did not fix my issue… I thought it had, but selecting it just did a refresh where the ad happened to load correctly, when I reloaded again the ad was gone and fonts were small again.
We had IE9 but I believe we had issues with its changing of language (we are in Japan and my wife is Japanese) so we reverted to IE8.
@ur momisugly TimH
Thanks for confirming the relationship with the advertisements.
I can reproduce the problem 100% : –
Compatibility View on – No problems.
Compatibility View off – Intermittent problems.
I only use IE9 and IE10, and the compatibility button only appears if the current web page does not deploy the latest “standards”.
If the browser remains in Compatibility View Mode for that paticular web page, the Compatibility View icon is “lit” with light blue, indicating this status, otherwise the problem remains.
” Theres a Squatch’ in these woods!”.
The problem is not your browser or operating system, it is caused by connection speed or a momentary loss of connection causing an incomplete page load. This can happen on wireless connections in particular or if the site you are accessing is experiencing a heavy demand. Purge your cache and reload the page. Should fix it.