Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of Sancler
Sancler

asked on

Browsers fail to complete page load

My browser is failing completely to load web pages from at least some sources.  I had thought that some sources were OK but experimentation with those seems to show that even if the initial page loads fully pages called up by following links on that can exhibit similar symptoms.

The symptoms are variable.  Sometimes the page fails to load at all.  Sometimes it loads part way and then stops.  Other times it appears to load fully (in the sense of all of the display being visible) but the "in progress" circle keeps moving.  The problem is similar whether I use Firefox (my default browser) or Internet Explorer.

Until a couple of days ago I had (or at least was aware of) no problem.  I have done a system restore to a point prior to that.  It has made no difference.

I noticed that Java had been automatically updated (to Update 26) shortly before the problem began.  I manually updated to Update 27.  It made no difference.  I uninstalled Java (using Control Panel) and reinstalled.  It made no difference.

I have tried running Firefox in Safe Mode (all add-ons disabled).  It made no difference.  I cleared all cookies and the cache in Firefox.  It made no difference.

My ISP is reporting no problems and, although I have raised a query with them, I don't really think the problem is there as, otherwise, my broadband connection appears to be working OK.

My system software details are

Windows 7 Home Premium version 6.1 (Build 7601: Service Pack 1)
iexplorer version 9.0.8112.16421
firefox version 6.0.1.4262
Java version 6 update 27 (build 1.6.0_27=b07)
Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
MS Security Essentials version 2.1.1116.0

My guess is that the problem is Java-linked.  That's because (a) the problem began so soon after Update 26 and (b) the hang-up seems to be caused by scripts not completing.

But I don't know where to look next.

Bear with me.  I'm typing this off-line and just hoping I'll be able to post.  Unfortunately, EE is one of the sites where initial loading seems OK but moving about causes problems.

Roger
Avatar of CEHJ
CEHJ
Flag of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland image

Does it happen irrespective of what site's pages you load?
You're not running in 'off-line' mode are you? That would try and use cached pages and images. If parts of the page haven't been cached or have expired then it wouldn't display those parts.
You could try a 'refresh page from server' - CTRL+F5
Personally i would confirm/eliminate scripting as the source of the problem by disabling it temporarily
Avatar of Sancler
Sancler

ASKER

Re which sites - most, if not all.  See send para of question.

No, I'm not running in off-line mode.

Refresh doesn't solve the problem: indeed a page that was nearly fully loaded may then not load at all.

How do I disable scripting temporarily?

Roger
>>How do I disable scripting temporarily?



http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/JavaScript
Could be your firewall/router needs a reboot or is bottlenecked ie. really slow or very busy
Avatar of Sancler

ASKER

Disabled scripting and (where it has a non-java version) page loads fast and apparently OK.  But any attempt to load a java containing page fails.  E.g. I have to have java enabled to get here (and then I can only do it by specifically logging on to EE, rather than by following any link in the notification e-mail).

Whole system has frequently been rebooted during my my experimentation.  It has made no difference.

Roger
>>Disabled scripting and (where it has a non-java version) page loads fast and apparently OK.

So that would suggest scripting IS a problem.

1. Re-enable scripting
2. Upgrade the browser (if possible)

If that doesn't help, you can try up- or downgrading the java plugin
Avatar of Sancler

ASKER

So far as I can tell, both browsers are bang up to date.

So are plug ins: Java Deployment Toolkit 6.0.270.7 and Java Platform SE 6 U27 6.0.270.7 both installed today.  How do I downgrade plug ins?

Roger
Are you experiencing the same problem in both browsers?
Avatar of Sancler

ASKER

>>  Are you experiencing the same problem in both browsers?

Yes
Get a page that don't load at all and on command prompt put:

> tracert thatPageUrl

Paste here the result of the command

This should give us an idea about if the problem is network related or not.
Avatar of Sancler

ASKER

RE both browsers.  I've also just tried downloading and temporarily installing Opera.  Same problem on that.  Opera now removed.

RE tracert.  I tried linking to your profile and got nothing.  Here's the trace from that

>>
C:\Users\Roger>tracert https://www.experts-exchange.com/M_5295118.html
Unable to resolve target system name https://www.experts-exchange.com/M_5295118.html.
<<

It seems it only works for sites, rather than pages.  Here's the trace for just the site

>>
C:\Users\Roger>tracert https://www.experts-exchange.com

Tracing route to experts-exchange.com [64.156.132.140]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.2.1
  2    27 ms    30 ms    41 ms  lo0-central2.pcl-ag05.plus.net [195.166.130.35]

  3    26 ms    25 ms    26 ms  gi7-8-521.pcl-gw01.plus.net [84.93.254.57]
  4    27 ms    26 ms    27 ms  po4.pcl-gw02.plus.net [212.159.1.129]
  5    25 ms    25 ms    26 ms  195.50.122.129
  6    25 ms    26 ms    26 ms  ae-34-52.ebr2.London1.Level3.net [4.69.139.97]
  7    94 ms    94 ms    94 ms  ae-44-44.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.137.78]

  8    94 ms   106 ms   107 ms  ae-71-71.csw2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.134.70]

  9    96 ms    95 ms    95 ms  ae-72-72.ebr2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.148.37]

 10   165 ms   164 ms   164 ms  ae-2-2.ebr4.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.69.135.185]
 11   171 ms   171 ms   172 ms  ae-2-2.ebr3.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.132.10]

 12   171 ms   170 ms   171 ms  ae-73-73.csw2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.137.3
8]
 13   170 ms   171 ms   171 ms  ge-8-0-70.hsa2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.144.
109]
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15   176 ms   175 ms   175 ms  www-level3.experts-exchange.com [64.156.132.140]


Trace complete.
<<

Roger
Check to see if you have some external software (such as anti-virus) throttling the download of javascript by scanning it
Avatar of Sancler

ASKER

Nothing that I can think of throttling it.  Only security stuff is the Windows stuff mentioned in my first post.  I've tried, and got rid of, other stuff (McAfee, Norton, Computer Associates, Zone Labs) over time as each has caused problems of its own.

In any event, in most cases when a page stops loading I can see that the scripts are there by (in Firefox) Tools>Web Developer>Page Source.  For instance, this page right now is apparently fully loaded but the "processing" circle is still going on the top left of the tab.   The legend at the bottom is "transferring data from https://www.experts-exchange.com..." but the page source goes right down to

>>
</script>
</body>
</html>

<!-- www3.experts-exchange.com:80 -->
<<

Roger
Avatar of Sancler

ASKER

So far as I can tell, I've now sorted this one out.  I've been thrashing around trying all sort of things: e.g. temporarily installed Chrome, found a source for earlier versions of Java and installed those (back to 23, then 24, then 25), enabling/disabling plug-ins.  All of this got me nowhere which made me think that it may be an OS problem rather than specific to a particular browser or version of java.  In the hope that it might be a fixable file corruption - and rather than me having to embark on a full re-install just on spec - I ran a full disk check with repairs, which took hours.  Subsequent to that I've run a series of tests on my current set up (now java version 25) and all seems to be going smoothly.  I'm now going to try updating to Java 26 then Java 27.

Roger
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of CEHJ
CEHJ
Flag of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of Sancler

ASKER

CEHJ

Perhaps the corruption (if there was one) was in a browser or java related file which did not get replaced during the various uninstal/re-instal processes.  But things still seem to be working OK after my updating to java 27, so I'm closing this.

I'm accepting your last post as the solution but the points are really for all your contributions.

Thanks for your help

Roger