Have your say & ask the experts

I don't think so Andrew because the same problem doesn't occur on any other website. All I can think of is the broadband connection is blocking the site at the end of the page download. But if that was the sole reason, a page wouldn't load at all. It's not because I have 'Block pop-up windows' selected as I've tried this site with that on and off and it makes no difference.

I've also tried changing a few of the browser preferences, such as selecting 'Accept all cookies' but to no avail. Sometimes computers do the weirdest things that just defy logic and I've had problems before that seemed to rectify themselves after I've spent hours trouble-shooting them.

Hm. Let me read back on your symptoms and will see what I can do. I suspect advert issues, tbh - do you get any errors in the status bar (in IE) or in Activity (in Safari) - can't remember where to look in FF...

Your point about pop-up windows may actually be a clue, for reasons it would take too long to go into here - would you try it with the blocker off for longer and see if it improves?

JohnDuncan:

Hm. Let me read back on your symptoms and will see what I can do. I suspect advert issues, tbh - do you get any errors in the status bar (in IE) or in Activity (in Safari) - can't remember where to look in FF...

Your point about pop-up windows may actually be a clue, for reasons it would take too long to go into here - would you try it with the blocker off for longer and see if it improves?

Hi JD, sorry, only just noticed your reply. So an update to this: TBH I've now lost patience with accessing the site on my Mac because it takes too long for any page to stop vanishing at the end of the download. Each separate page I was attempting to open took 10 reloads or more to finally appear and then I had to go through the same routine with the next page, i.e. when trying to open a thread. Today I am writing from the desk of my good lady wife (29th Anniversary yesterday, I'd have been out after nine years on good behaviour), and using her PC, which has no problems at all and it's on the same Virgin Media cable connection via a wireless router. Go figure.

PS. Thanks very much for looking into this but please don't spend too much time on it as I know what illogical b*ggers these hiccups can be.

PPS. I'll go back to my Mac now and report back on what all the progress/status bars report. I have not had the same problem with the old copy of IE but a different one - the overlapping of headers and body text. I investigated updating my copy of IE but it seems Microsoft stopped supporting IE for the Mac platform in 2005, so I have the most up-to-date version availble. I know now from using IE on this PC that there is a facility in the top header - 'Compatibility View' - to fix this problem with older browers. Obviously this useful feature is not included in my Mac version, hence the overlapping issue.

Yes indeed. Am the first to admit that posting on this forum is not the easiest in Safari (though I notice you have the plain text editor, which at least makes it tolerable). We're doing something about it, but it'll be a while...

In Safari 4.0.3 (latest version for Mac) the Status Bar is not loading all items (hard to see the total as it disappears just before the page disappears), usually states 1 error and on the page going blank states: 'Cancelled opening the page'. But it also displays that message when the page doesn't vanish and is on the Status Bar now with this page working normally.

What do you need from the Activity window? It appears to be just a list of urls connected to this site with file sizes alongside each one.

Ok I'm going to ask the "Five Star" question now, why is this website so ******* ****?

It's getting worse and it's not me, I haven't changed anything for weeks but for the last week or more it's been a nightmare, no page will load without several attempts, when they do start to load they never finish and again it's always www.google-analytics.com or stat.flashtalking.com, none of which adds anything useful to the user experience, I know it's all about the adverts but to be honest, that's your problem, not ours, we don't need the ads and we don't need the statistic collections, so until this stuff works properly, TAKE IT OUT!

Now you'll probably say "it's a firefox issue" but so what? Firefox is the second most popular browser out there, if there are page elements that don't work with it, remove them until you do get it working! Right now I'm seriously considering not coming here any more because it's such a painful experience and that would be a shame (well, for me, others might disagree...).

Incidentally, it's only on community. that I get this problem, www. is fine all the time.

Calm down, please.

All I can say is that the office computers and all those at home run Firefox, and I'm not having any such problems. But please be assured JD will be on the case as soon as he can be, and if we can identify what the problem is we will remedy it.

But if we can't duplicate the problem, it's going to take time.

In the meantime, apologies that you seem to be having these problems.

Indeed, this deserves a full detailed reply, which I'm afraid I can't give right now as I'm going out for cocktails (sorry)...

Don't worry, I'm off out to play pool, I'm not expecting anyone to work weekends! I get enough of that at work myself to know how annoying it is when people expect you to be on call 24x7 (but won't pay you for it!).

It's just frustrating because if it keeps getting worse the site (for me at least) will be unusable. 

If it helps it doesn't seem to be linked to any particular time of the day and it is on more than one computer from completely different internet connections (in different parts of the country).

It's already unusable for me on my Mac so I have to access this site from a PC. No great hardship really - I'll wait for JD to find the time to look into it. I can appreciate it's going to be a toughie if you can't duplicate the same problem.

The solution is simple. I've pointed it out on many occasions but no-one seems to listen. Use Adblock Plus to block the troublesome ads and scripts. Once you've added them to your block list, they won't trouble you anymore.

Adblock is free add-on for firefox.

PJPro:

The solution is simple. I've pointed it out on many occasions but no-one seems to listen. Use Adblock Plus to block the troublesome ads and scripts. Once you've added them to your block list, they won't trouble you anymore.

Adblock is free add-on for firefox.

Thanks PJ. Do you have a link to that free add-on for Firefox for Mac and is there one for Safari for Mac? I find Safari must faster than Firefox and prefer to use that browser if at all possible.

In FF click menu>tools>add-ons,when the pop-up box opens up click the get add-ons tab then type adblock plus in the search box!

 For Safari http://burgersoftware.com/en/safariadblock

In fact, I've stripped everything out from the site except the absolutely essential.

daveh75:

In FF click menu>tools>add-ons,when the pop-up box opens up click the get add-ons tab then type adblock plus in the search box!

 For Safari http://burgersoftware.com/en/safariadblock

Thanks, I'll report back here when I've tried those solutions.