ZG Javascript problem?

When I'm in London I use my flatmate's PC and on that machine every time I visit ZG it kills the machine stone dead unless I've previously disabled Javascript. No "blue screen of death" or any other error - just an instant freeze which only a power off can remedy. So far not noticed the problem on any other site, including PFM and other vBulletin based forums.

The PC runs Windows 2000 (fully service packed and hotfixed)with IE6. It also has no spyware or virus infection. It's just a very odd problem.

Anyone ever noticed anything similar? I'll have to get Firefox on the machine sooner or later but at 56Kbps dial-up that's going to be a bundle of laughs . Can you believe that there are areas of central London (well, Wandsworth) where broadband of any kind is simply not available???

Michael.

 

Most odd indeed, you may also like to install the Firefox NoScript extention as this keeps a tight hold over both Java and JavaScript that wish to run on your machine.

NoScript Help Page

The price to be paid for living is such a sought after area (That is according to local Estate Agents)

PS I also get this ZG error when viewing the Java Console via Tools>JavaScript Console but I don't reckon this is the cause of your problem.

Error: Expected color but found '#'. Error in parsing value for property 'color'. Declaration dropped.
Source File: http://www.zerogain.com/forum/clientscript/vbulletin_css/style-9af1a473-00006.css
Line: 92

 

Auric - I think oldham is a pretty sought-after area too. As in, by the police...

I'm sure that when he wakes up tomorrow, our technical guru will have something to say on the issue. No ideas here...

 

Hmm - don't ever recall that problem when I briefly ran Windows 2000 with SP4/IE6 fully patched on my Athlon 64 PC here. Not had the problem on Windows XP SP2 either on a number of PCs - both at work and home. Home PC sits behind a D-Link ADSL modem/wireless router, PCs at work I've tried it on use a MS ISA Server box with WebSense content filtering enabled as a proxy for web traffic.

Wonder if there is some weird conflict with the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine/IE6 on the PC in question? Can't see why it should cause a problem, as AFAIK, ZG doesn't use any JavaScript.

Have you also cleared out all of the temporary internet files for good measure? This can fix some real weird problems - such as IE insisting on saving JPEG files as a BMP. I also aways tick the 'Offline Files' option when clearing the temp internet files.

 

The only technical difference I'm aware of between ZG and pfm is the vbindex 3rd party active content front end on ZG (I'm still too cowardly to install it on pfm!). Don't know of that helps, might be worth trying another vbindex enabled site and seeing if that crashes the PC out.

Tony.

 

The only thing I have noticed is on the PC at work which is dial up, zerogain is unbelievably slow and PFM is nippy in comparison.

 

Any particular pages it has an issue with, Michael, or simply loading the site at all? The JS is all standard vB stuff - nothing changed there.

The error Auric mentioned being reported in Firefox was a typo in the CSS file, which has been sorted, but that seems unlikely to have caused the issue.

You and your damn multiple personalties!

 

JavaScript and Java have nothing to do with each other so the JVM (used for Java) doesn't come into it.

ZG, like all vBulletin forums uses JavaScript extensively, eg. for the drop down menus like "QuickLinks" etc.

Also noticed this on dialup allthough ZG speeds up remarkably when JavaScript is disabled. Beyond that ZG has avatars and other vB stuff that uses bandwitdh which is disabled in PFM.

The main forum page always loads fine. It usually breaks when I click on a "go to first unread" link for a thread (usually from the "New Posts" search results). The first couple of times it might work but it will take around 30s before displaying the thread, allthough if I click "Stop" on the browser shortly after requesting the thread it will usually appear in full instantly. It's as if the browser is trying to churn through some kind of JavaScript for DHTML before displaying the thread. Beyond about the 3rd or 4th thread the machine will freeze unless I disable JavaScript.

I should add that this is the only machine I've ever seen the problem with. My hunch is that it's some kind of display driver bug that's interacting strangely with some DHTML/JavaScript part of the page. It's hard to see anything higher level causing a complete machine freeze.

Michael.

 

This is the reason: I have all ZG's avatar and graphic silliness turned off in my user profile and if anything it is faster than pfm.

Tony.

 

Oops - sorry for the confusion, Michael. I think I got more than a little confused with Java/JavaScript

 

A lot of people do, my old boss (who ran a web development company) used to get call JavaScript Java it really confused me.

The only thing in common between the two is the syntax is slightly similar.

 

I see it all now JavaScript & Java are not the same thing

 

I've since got the problem on an entirely different website so I don't think it's anything to do with ZG or Javascript. I suspect that the internal modem on the PC is shagged - its driver occasionally dies with a fatal exception. Something about using Javascript must just make the modem/driver issue more likely to occur.

Michael.