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
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IE8 4GB Memory. problem began for me two days ago and is intermittent.
unlike the example at the top of the thread, all comments show as tiny, faint block capitals.
CA has a similar problem, but with LARGER FONT SIZE, faint block capitals all over the homepage, and in comments.
have been to quite a few wordpress blogs, including Air Vent, Autonomous Mind & non-CAGW sites and cannot see similar problem.
Older machines running Windows XP……
Oh come on, older?
a jones
I only have molasses slow in Tips n Notes too. I’ll have to get more RAM.
Windows Vista Home Premium with SP 2, 2 Gb of RAM, IE8, all updates installed, no issues.
@Darren Watt
I’m Using IE8 in XP (it’s a work thing)… so I’ll have to give Firefox a try if it persists.
Anthony,
“Memory is cheap these days, and is your best bank for buck performance upgrade.”
I believe the term you mean is ‘bang for your buck’.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_origin_of_bang_for_your_buck
‘banks for bucks’ has had a negative connotation for me, way before banks became so good at extracting cagw monies.
Haven’t had any these problems with my homemade PC-AT compatible running Boyan BBS software on Novell DOS 7. 😀
… forgeting the fact that Windows and IExplorer both have a long history of well documented bugs and non-standard issues, due to Microsofts policys (a.k.a. control needs) …
Furthermore, incomplete page load generatesi random results, not similar ones …
Actually, “recent comments” is often the first thing I Iook at.
Please bring it back.
On my XP latest updates system with IE8, the article is fine but everything after the “Top Posts” is in a strange font and capitol letters. However the problem keeps change\ing in where the odd font and capitals starts. Usually the article is fine but the comments are messed up, this only started about 5 days ago.
It’s variable. IE8 XP SP3 in a VMWare VM on OS X Lion.
First time I opened the page, I saw the problem. I was asked if I wanted to run a Flash plugin; said yes. When I came back to the page, there was a new post (about Steve McIntyre’s comments). Everything was working. I don’t know if it was running the plugin, or just the refresh of the page.
There was a javascript problem reported.
James Ard said on March 10, 2012 at 3:55 pm:
Shhh! You’re not supposed to notice the side effects of the monitoring software that Homeland Security forced wordpress-dot-com to install by a secret order from the secret anti-terrorism court, that has negligible effects on non-M$ products as M$ is beholden by their government contracts to supply HSA with backdoor access, which is monitoring visitors to sites that are obviously anti-government as evidenced by opposition to increased EPA regulations, opposition to administration economy-building “green energy” initiatives, and denying the validity of government-endorsed research concerning the greatest threat to the US in terms of widespread destruction and casualties, namely global warming.
Dear Lord, I wish I could stick an unambiguous /sarc tag on that, but I can’t as it really could be true, I can believe this administration could use these means to do that using those justifications. God help us all.
I am trying this out, and posting from an older Sony Vaio laptop, circa 1998 running Windows XP with only 192 MB of memory, the max possible on this machine. Everything looks correct. IE8 version. I am using Remote Desktop because the screen backlight stopped working a few months ago.
Host: 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.
No problems at all here: Xp SP3, using the latest Opera browser, version 11 something; been running Opera browsers since Version 6 on a ’98SE machine!
Host: I’ve found that 2GB RAM in Windows XP is the sweet spot.
Aye; upgraded this (now old) workhorse Dell OptiPlex GX270 2.8 GHz single CPU to 2 GB of memory from 512MB (the computer was a ‘resurrection’ from work!) last year and things have never been as smooth …
Now, having said that, I am ‘upgrading’ compute resources to another machine – to a pair actually- of Dell OptiPlex 755 Desktops each with a “Core 2 Duo” 3 GHz (E8400) processor, 6 MB L2 cache and the MB outfitted with 4 GB memory … for storage each one came with a 500GB SATA HD … each bought off eBay for ~147 US dollars and maaaaaaaaaaan are they quick ! Oh yeah, a each one also had the factory ATI/Radeon 2400 XT GPU dual-monitor analog/digital capable card as well as the on-board Intel graphics chipset (either one of the other works; selectable at boot time in the BIOS) …
I love the Dell “Service Tag” lookup on their website for their Latitude and OptiPlex series business class products anyway; I don’t know if the consumer grade Dell Dimension PCs have that level of support, but their Business Class OptiPlex series lets one go back ‘in time’ and see what the PC was ‘born’ with and also one has access to all the needed drivers (chipsets, BIOS upgrades, Windows drivers et al) for bringing an OptiPlex system ‘back up’ when installing something like Xp from scratch …
.
my toshiba satellite laptop internet connection is operating slowly atm – 10 mins to download a pic, screen flashing. possibly there’s an auto update (stormpredator) dominating band width. maybe the CME is/was having an effect.
I posted a comment 15 mins ago on the watergate post. I’ve checked it 7 times, refreshing each time. I’ve received one awaiting moderation, with 4 comments, one no comments and no comment box, and 5 of comment box, 4 comments.
obviously a glitch in the system.
The Tips and Notes page is huge and takes a long time to refresh.
Otherwise the site works fine for me. I have only 240 MB of memory so am still running Win98SE using Opera 9.25. There is no more modern browser that works on Win98SE, and there is no more recent Windows system that can possibly run on my computer, which I will upgrade soon when I have time.
So, get Opera and make sure you have a couple of hundred megabytes of cache.
I have had exactly the same problems mentioned here with the article remaining untouched whilst the comments become a different font and in capitals-totally unreadable.
The problem is intermittent however-yesterday was mostly fine. I have IE8 and Windows 7 which are regularly updated.
I also have had a problem whereby it has been impossible to click in the box and activate it in order to make a comment/ This again has been intemnittent and lasted for several days on and off. Its ok (obviously) at the moment.
I have none of these problems on my ipad.
tonyb
On my first visit this morning WUWT was unreadable. On my second it was fine and I posted the comment above.
I return ten minutes later and it is unreadable again, although the text within the ‘leave a reply’ box is perfectly ok.
tonyb
I’ve downloaded and looked at the style-sheets a page from WUWT typically pulls down. All the ones I’ve looked at seem to do it right with a list of fonts and the expected default “sans-serif”. The fonts seem to be set to sans-serified fonts for headings and captions (buttons, data fields etc) only. This means the main text of the page may not be controlled by a style sheet, leaving the font for the the browser’s default font family (or the client system’s default font-family) and size, which, over the years, is usually a system serifed font (eg: times, times new roman or similar).
Now, I haven’t looked at ALL the style sheets, but from the samples I’ve seen, Word Press seems to do it right with a comma-separated font list ending in a default. The problem may then come down to a stylesheet entry somewhere, which I haven’t spotted, which is malformed (such as missing a comma before the default entry) and this could be causing trouble. This should be checked by Word Press.
I use 64-bit Linux systems both at work and at home with various browsers ranging from Konqueror, through Firefox and Opera of various releases. All have been OK (Opera tends to be flaky but as it’s not open source I’m not surprised :-).
I also run Windows XP SP2 as a (32-bit) virtual guest on my work machine because I need the flash library (reliably) for a web site I have to work with which uses flash heavily. I use the default IE but I also run a recent Firefox there. Neither browser on the XP guest has shown problems with WUWT.
Hope this helps, Anthony
Darren Watt says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:17 pm
I did this and it fixed the problem for now.
Might note that with IE8 installed and auto-updates I’ve been bombarded with invitations to appreciate the joys of upgrading to IE 8 lately!
And then it didn’t and then it did!
WTF
And it seems it is only the comments that go ack willie unless I hit the compatibility button.
And, re previous post , it took a couple of hits of the compatibility button before things came back to normal after posting a comment. We’ll see what happens this time.
Only once this time – but the font looks like it may have changed in the comments box
And this time I didn’t have to hit the compatibility button but the font still looks smaller here as with the last posting. Enough for now.
Just exited IE and restarted. All seems to work without compatibility button now. Still smaller print size in comments box I think.
Doesn’t seem to be generic WordPress as Jo Nova and Verity Jones sites seem to work PK.
We’ll see when this is posted.