Internet Explorer problems

[fm1963]

With increasing frequency, I get the following message when I open Chowhound with my office computer:

"Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close, We are sorry for the inconvenience."

Is this a problem on my end or are others getting the same message? I have no issues viewing Chowhound at home with my Mac. Thanks!

[The Professor]

I don't use IE, but I do notice that the new CHOWHOUND does seem to have some strange issues. I've resolved some of them by using a plug in that prevents the annoying built in data-mining that occurs everytime one enters one of CH's the ...especially cookies being set from companies like Doubleclick, Facebook Connect, Google Analytics, Revenue Science, BlueKai, and CBS Interactive.
Annoying to have to do that, but it helped in my case.
In the case of your office computer , it's probably an old version of the browser, or it could even be your IT department preventing the site from loading.

[onceadaylily]

Thanks, Professor. I just cleared my cache, and was able to open the problem thread. I *do* clear out the PC every two or three days, but doing it more often won't hurt.

[onceadaylily]

It's happening to me again, this time in IE, and only when I'm in the process of opening up a thread on chowhound. Explorer has to then close and reset my tab, which then gives me all expanded posts, as CH is marking it already 'read' by me. Very annoying. It's crashed three times this morning, and a few times yesterday as well. The only other website that this has been happening on is Netflix. Multiple crashes, but only on these two websites, very odd. I am unsure there is anything engineering can do about this issue, but I thought I'd put the info out there for the other members, in case others are experiencing issues. Thanks.

[Engineering]

That is certainly strange. I've been trying to reproduce the IE crashes every now and then, but thus far have not managed it. We apologize for the inconvenience. Be sure to let us know if you notice any sort of pattern to these issues, and we'll focus our investigation accordingly.

[onceadaylily]

Thanks for the note. It truly is just these two websites, and happens after I've clicked on a link within either site (when trying to open a thread here, or my netflix que, for example) It crashess during the loading cycle. Perhaps some type of software, or programming, that the two have in common is conflicting with a microsoft program is all I can surmise. It's possible I just need to run an update somwhere, I guess. I'll try that later. Thanks again.

[onceadaylily]

It has crashed every single time I try to open a specific thread (Cowering with Fear) during the last two or so days, even though I had opened other threads successfully.

[Engineering]

Just to be clear: this one right here?
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/790274

Still no luck in reproducing a crash on our end, but I'll keep looking. Do other threads with 400+ posts crash for you as well?

[onceadaylily]

I was able to see the title of the link you provided just before it crashed: yes that's the one. I reopened CH and found a 500+ thread, which also crashed IE, so that does appear to be the problem. Thanks for pointing that out, as I was certain it was an script on that particular page that was causing it, and not the size of the thread itself. I'm on the laptop at the moment, but this was happening on the PC as well. This problem has only been happening for a few weeks, and I can't think of anything, beyond run of the mill updates, that could be causing this at my end. Thanks for your help.

[nsxtasy]

When I was using my previous computer (which was rather old by computer technology standards), it would crash when I tried to open huge Chowhound topics, such as those with 400+ posts. When I replaced it with my current computer, which has a lot more memory, it no longer crashes.

[Engineering]

This is one of the unfortunate downsides of keeping all posts on the same page instead of paginating them; as thread length increases, the memory / cache / etc. demands increase as well, which adds pressure to the user's computer. However, based on feedback I've seen elsewhere in Site Talk, the downsides of paginating threads far outweigh the problems we're seeing under the current system.

[onceadaylily]

Laptop is a few years old, but I've only had the PC for a month or so (and it was built for gaming, which means it's supposed to be able to handle more than the average system). I was just puzzled when the crashes happened on both machines, as I had just sent the PC back to my guy to have it wiped clean and the software then reinstalled. The PC comes back in a few days, but in the meantime I'm more diligent about clearing the cache, which circumvents the problem.

I am reassessing the skills of the computer geek we hired though. We commissioned a monster of a pc built to our specs. . . but it can't even handle Chowhound? ;) It's just weird that it happened on both machines during the same time-frame.

[Engineering]

Cache sizes rarely make liberal use of the space available on a given machine, Internet Explorer notwithstanding. Certain browsers' default cache sizes will feel the strain regardless of your hardware specs- those larger Chowhound posts can get much bigger than is typically expected for a single webpage.

I recall that Firefox (and likely other browsers) have settings that allow you to clear private data when you close them. Those options could save you the trouble of clearing your cache manually if you configure them to do so.

[onceadaylily]

Ah, I see what you're saying, and will stop blaming the geek. But I was using the still-buggy FF4 on the PC with those settings when I started experiencing the crash, and then began to have the same problem on the laptop through IE. When the PC comes back, I'm going back to FF3. I'm hoping that the removing and restoring of the Windows software especially, and the smoother running FF3, will solve the PC issues.

[deibu]

I'm having crashes in Chrome on Mac when I open multiple messages in tabs. ALL Chowhound tabs crash. Very annoying because reloading those tabs resets the "read count" on that thread, and I have to filter through all the replies.

[Engineering]

Which version of IE do you have at work?

[fm1963]

We use Internet Explorer 7 at work.

[Engineering]

Haven't been able to reproduce the problem thus far. Are these crashes limited to the forums? And, as far as you recall, is there any pattern to what you're doing when they occur?

[fm1963]

The crashes are limited to the Chowhound forum and certain news websites. I'll ask our IT department to look into it. Thanks for checking!

[onceadaylily]

Weird. I had the same problem with FF4 a few days ago. Multiple crashes when I was on chowhound, with that same message. The problem resolved itself, whatever it was.

[nsxtasy]

I'm using IE8 and have not experienced that problem.