I’ve been getting a lot of support emails like this, so I figured it is time to bring the issue front and center:
Thought I would let you know that for the past week or two, I’m having a problem with your website (wattsupwiththat.com).
I can read the first few stories, fine but as I continue to scroll down, the screen goes blank (all white), and does not come back.
I am using Firefox 3.6.28 on an Imac running Mac OS 10.4.11.
My software may be outdated, but if I’m having the problem others may as well.
WordPress.com (my hosting provider) recently made yet another unannounced upgrade to the blog software that provides for continuous scroll, adding new stories as you scroll down. There seems to be no way to turn off this feature, so the only way around the problem in older browsers (Like Firefox 3.6 which is out of date) is to upgrade. Upgrades are free, just do it.
Firefox is now up to version 11.0 – get it here: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/
Chrome is up to 18.0 – get it here: http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/
Internet Explorer 9 is out, though IE8 will work just fine. IE 6/7 not so much.
Safari/Opera/others – I have no experience with them, please advise in comments
“Hexe Froschbein wrote: …The last time I was sabotaged this way it took the entire afternoon to ‘downgrade’ the computer into something workable — I don’t have time or muse to faff around with this rubbish for hours either, so I no longer upgrade anything, life is short and one is dead for a very long time. “
Yup! The last upgrade I did to FF11 on one of my machines (XP sp3 box), it took me 5 cold boots and some messing around before it would even start. Ergo, I have not yet updated the other four on my network yet, until I find out what going on with it. I dead my monthly network backup/upgrade regime – I can kiss an entire weekend goodbye on five stoopid boxes….
Wordpress still gives me a browser out of date message, even with the most up-to-date browser on my system (either FF ir IE.) IE still, after years, try to handle html differently than everybody else. When I do a wordpress them up, I have to run both FF and IE side by side to see how the code reacts. In my latest case, IE and FF interpreted text at polar opposites – dark in IE and light on FF, for the same code. Not all is happy in CSS and HTML/XML land…
Personally, I have issues with WordPress from time to time. I write a reply like this, and hit Post comment, and WordPress demands that I log into my WordPress account. Occasionally it barfs on “duplicate email address”. OSX 10.6 (since I need Rosetta for some stuff, and Lion dumps supporting it) with the latest Firefox. After I log in, my reply as gone off to the great bit bucket in the sky. I saved this post with a “copy” and had to restore it with a “paste” so I could post the reply after log in. It just pulled the “Log in to your WordPress account” on me. Somehow, it would be nice to isolate the WordPress account from the functionality of posting a reply.
It just pulled the “log in to your WordPress account” after I logged in and did the previous reply. I was logged in. WordPress has issues.
My next post pulled the same thing on me.
Paul Coppin says:
April 4, 2012 at 5:07 am
Any speaking of WUWT and WordPress , I get this message this morning on every post to WUWT:
“Server Maintenance”
______________________
Same thing here, Paul. even though I’m running FireFox 11.0.
After installing the latest Win&.0 updates, the problem went away, but that may not have been the real “fix”.
My machine was never rebooted after the last FF update- FF program didn’t require a reboot and this machine controls a ‘process’ which I didn’t want to interrupt at the time.
The reboot may have been all that was needed… others experiencing the same issue might try a reboot before a Win 7 update to verify.
I am running Firefox 11.0 on Win7-64, and WUWT always shows properly. Unfortunately FF 11 is a memory HOG and after a time of general web surfing with a few tabs being opened and closed, the FF memory usage grows so that there are very noticeable delays across my (admittedly vintage 2008) Windows PC. It seems that unlike MS Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, FF does not run each tab in a separate memory space. That means that unlike FF, when you close a tab in IE or Chrome, that memory is automatically freed. My guess is the ubiquitous Flash is consuming memory and not freeing it up, thus compounding the FF memory issue.
Just did some more experimentation with the Verizon Motorola Android X2. When accessing the homepage, the articles load normally at first, but some time later while scrolling to the lower articles the screen blanks white and is replaced by:
The URL is the homepage, but only the ad remains visible.
Approaching the Website from other links in the search engines goes to another WUWT Webpage, which does not yet seem to exhibit the problem with the advertisement replacing the Webpage content. It seems to act normally. However, selecting the title link back to the homepage once more loads the articles only to be blanked out and replaced by the above advertisement. This forces the user to access the other WUWT Webpages without going through the homepage.
I get the white out on my android phone, which is up to date.
This is only the latest problem with viewing WUWT on the default phone browser. Some time back the pages stopped being formatted to a mobile layout and just displayed the desktop version.
The Opera Mini continues to display properly for both of these issues.
Never had a problem.
1Gb RAM, dual core processor. Windows Vista + IE8 / now IE9
Works fine for me…..
Anthony,
Good on ya for insisting that readers use current technology. Anyone who tailors his product to accommodate cheapskates and freeloaders is doomed to failure (see Groupon).
I am using OSX 10.7.3 on a MacBookPro. I use Google Chrome as my browser which seems to be the lesser of all evils and it displays WUWT perfectly and always has. It does, however slow down over a week or so of hard riding but a restart solves that just fine. I use Duck-Duck-Go as the general search engine ever since Google started to get a little too interested in my browsing history with their recent changes. Perhaps that a little paranoid of me but this recent rash of accusations of mental health issues by the warmista and their running dogs has made me more alert shall we say.
I have used FF but the way it just clogs up the CPU so quickly has led to my no longer using it.
Safari is reliable but very clunky and there are certain pages I use that it simply will not work with but WUWT isn’t one of them.
Tried OPERA and liked it except for a few little idiosyncrasies that I found off putting after a while. I am told that the OPERA crew in Oslo are quick to incorporate sensible suggestions but I haven’t bothered them as Chrome meets all my needs.
A,
At home I have windows 7 & IE8
When I scroll down, I do receive new stories, and more new stories, and more new stories….
The problem that is created is that the side bar widgets never reach the bottom of the list so I can’t get to the archive files nor even anywhere below the first three images in the live weather roll. Fortunately I got you covered at work. 😉
Win 7 and Opera ver 11.62 works fine
I guess it was fortunate in just the last week I got a second-hand “modern” PC w/Win7 that can run on DSL. Before I was running Windows NT4.0 w/Firefox 2.0 (which was hard to find — it was the only one that would install successfully) on dial-up. The only way I could browse was to turn off everything — javascript, images, etc.
I have Firefox 10xxx now w/no real issues. I use the Ghostery add-on w/Firefox (somebody here at WUWT recommended it) that blocks a bunch of tracking sites & a HOSTS file that blocks hundreds more, so no popups. I also have twitter, facebook & even invasive google blocked in the HOSTS files. So WUWT & most other sites load in a few seconds even w/images on. Also, ImgLikeOpera & NoSquint are useful Firefox add-ons.
On OS X 10.6.8:
Firefox 11 thru 13a2 Works fine.
Safari 5.1.2 Works fine, slower than Firefox on page load tho… (mainly images)
Via Parallels, IE8 on WinXP works fine (as far as IE goes 🙂
I’ve found that I have to log off WordPress. –AGF
WUWT quit working for me. I found out that I had to log out of WordPress. Now it works. –AGF
Works ok with Chrome. However, in my (Android) phone its practically unusable now.
I will be looking at a post, something will happen, and all I am left with is the ad that goes right after the article. Refresh is no help.
Saying upgrade is no help either. There is no upgrade for the Android browser. Tried the other popular Android browser (Dolphin) which is a not much better on WordPress, and has a nasty bug which prevents you scrolling far enough to see the text entry field when the on-screen keyboard pops up.
BTW: I REALLY OBJECT to WP insisting that I have to login when I use my usual email address. This is simply going to cause many, many people to make up random email addresses.
Yeah, …got a notice from Opera that the update was available a short while after making my previous post .
Dial-up sucks!, but the new Opera update does load the entire WUWT home page now.
It should be noted by critics of dial-up Internet services that there are many households who do not have broadband Internet services available as an affordable option in many rural areas. Cable and DSL services are not provided in many rural areas, and satellite is either not available again because of limitations in telephone service for an uplink or beacause of the monthly costs being too expensive.for the uplink and downlink by satellite.
Well I’m using the Win 7 64 bit M$ virus with whatever Int Exp they peddle, on an 8 core i-7 laptop.
The slowness of my system seems to be mostly related to M$ or Adobe, or McAfee, or somebody else wasting all my internet and CPU speed downloading the latest fix du jour for their software crap.
I get best results when I turn off my internet access, so nobody can use up my time for their junk, but sooner or later, I have to turn it on to get WUWT, and hopefully get back off, before they discover I am available to play games with my computer.
I figure the MS DOS 3.2 was the last good operating system that M$ had.
There was only one problem with this article…. It was on the section of the Home Page that would not load for me! If I had not thought to use Rick Werme’s Guide to WUWT to get the daily Table Of Contents, I would never have seen this post!
Muchas Gracias Rick!!! I’m using your Guide more and more!
MtK
PS:
I loaded the latest available FireFox version and the problem has been eliminated.
Thanks for the guidance, Anthony/Mods!!
MtK
I am using “maxthon” and have no problems.