Browser Bug

[dlester]

This has been discussed before, so this is just more information.

The issue where a button is clicked on, and nothing happens (this could be rating a problem, tagging a problem, or just clicking the next problem button) has been assumed to be network latency.  The theory being that when the server fails to properly communicate with the client that the session stops responding due to its own built-in feature to prevent users from getting improperly credited with an incorrect answer when they get impatient and click the button a second time.

I spent quite a bit of time today doing problems with Wireshark running in the background.  I could clearly see how things worked when they were working correctly.  I also expected to see the nature of the network problems when they occurred.

When I experienced the issue where the site just stops responding and you need to open a new browser session to start over again, I did not ever see a request leave my workstation only to never receive a response.  What I did see, which provides no help at all in isolating the issue, is nothing at all. 

This issue may be a 'browser bug' with IE7 (which is what I use), but I can rather confidently declare after this testing it is definitely not network related.

[texian]

is this perhaps related to or cause of a performance problem when using CT? i've encountered performance problems several times when using CT but previously attributed it to the many applications i generally have running .. yesterday, CT was the only application running, but i encountered it again after mindlessly working 100+ problems in a single session .. things started getting very slow, shutting down even became difficult, and CT was the only thing running

[richard]

Thanks dlester,

I hadn't gotten to the point of running packet capture on the problem yet.  I think there is probably more than one problem here with similar symptoms.  I can reproduce it at my end by simple unplugging the network cable before clicking "next problem" which suggestions that at least in some cases lack of network connectivity can trigger the problem. This is on Firefox however where the problem exhibits itself slightly differently, in that a single tab can stop responding but starting up another tab you are able to communicate fine with CT, whereas IE seems to stop responding altogether when making requests to CT and will not make any more until being restarted.  From your information it sounds like the Firefox version is probably network related and has to do with the disabling of next etc until the reply is received, but the reply never arrives.  On IE however it sounds like IE is deciding not to allow any further connections out to CT, perhaps there is a certain level of resources it will allow one site to eat during a session and CT is doing too much. I'll have to do some further testing on IE...if only it wasn't such a horrible platform to develop web apps on (next to no debugging tools - at least free ones).

texian: There may certainly be some interaction between the problem dlester is referring to and slowing down over time. IE6 is particularly susceptible to this when using CT, IE7 is also somewhat susceptible , Firefox seems a lot better but may still have some problems over the longer term.  I fixed a few resource leakage issues shortly after the last update, but it seems like there may still be some lurking issues here (IE6 leaks by nature, but IE7 and Firefox leaks are likely to be my fault rather than the browsers).

Richard.

[dlester]

For whatever it is worth, I finally broke down and installed Firefox and have used it to do somewhere around 100 problems now.  Although it still has little periods where I click something and get a bit of hesitation on the response, the response still comes whereas with IE it was just locking up and needing the browser to be restarted.

So, based completely on my circumstantial feedback, it does appear to be an issue with this site and IE.  When using IE I would never get more than half a dozen problems without an issue, so getting through this many in Firefox 'feels' conclusive.

[richard]

Thanks dlester,

It's difficult to tell at the moment if there are two different problems or one problem with different symptoms on Firefox and IE.  I suspect the former, IE seems to have problems that are likely not network related as well as issues with what happens when the network has problems, unfortunately they both lead to similar situations, i.e. A locked browser that needs restarting.  As you've noticed, Firefox always seems to recover after a network connectivity issue, at the very worst, the tab needs , but I don't think I've seen a full browser reload required.  I rejoice at every extra % Firefox manages to take away from IE in browser market share :-)  I haven't exhausted my efforts trying to track the core problem on IE (actually, I've spent less time on this problem than I should) so I still hope to track it down (or at least find a viable workaround), although I'm secretly hoping everyone will just switch to Firefox :-) (which is not problem free, but bugs there are many times easier to track down than in IE due to superior free debugging tools for Firefox).

Regards,
Richard.