Update: I am moving this post forward by a day to make sure everyone sees it. It originally went up on Sunday morning. (The first 119 comments are from Sunday.)
We are doing a major test this week, and we need your help.
But first, since this is Sunday, I will share another photo of my tree peony, one week later, which amazingly made it through three (3!) freeze warnings and two days of rain. I am ecstatic!
We need your help. We turned off all the ads on the site so we can determine what role ads are playing in site issues that some people experience. When we take issues to the developers, I want to be sure that the problems are ad-related.
Please include hardware/OS/browser information with your comments – without that information, it’s impossible to discern patterns, and without patterns, we don’t know where to look.
Please state whether the problem occurs all the fucking time, sometimes, or only occasionally.
Please state whether you use an ad blocker, and which one.
Even if you commented in John’s technical Issues post from last week, we need all the information in one place, so please post your issues again here. You can copy & paste from there, and then edit to indicate which issues are no longer a problem.
Technical Issues
- Comments do not show up until a manual refresh, or multiple manual refreshes.
- Sometimes you can not edit your comment within the normal 5-minute window.
- When clicking on Reply, sometimes @nym does not show up in the popup reply box.
- Site takes an impossibly long time to load on a phone.
- Site takes an impossibly long time to load on a tablet.
- Site is slow, even on a computer.
- Back arrow no longer reliably takes you even one step back. (The back arrow took you back many steps during testing before the rollout.)
- Back arrow reliably takes you one step back, but you cannot trace back through several steps. (The back arrow took you back many steps during testing before the rollout.)
- You bounce to the top of the page after making a comment.
- After upgrade to Firefox 85.0 and higher, visual mode no longer works.
- Visual and text tabs are not always visible; when that happens it defaults to text with no tabs showing. (Question: is that true in the comment box only or also in the reply popup?)
- Recent comments do not always update properly.
- Other issues that are not on this list. (Please explain any additional problems in detail.)
Please weigh in either way. If some issue remain, please specify which issues are still happening, and which have gone away. Make that double-please, this is really an important piece to know.
WaterGirl
Please don’t forget to comment if the site is now behaving well! We need feedback of all kinds in order to determine what part the ads play in the site performance.
sab
I am not a particularly useful commenter on this since I am a luddite and don’t do anything much complicated.
The site has been very slow to load for me on my Nook, and also for my husband on his iphone. I get text immediately, with the little blue links. Eventually the little blue links link and show photos and whatever.
This morning, instant loading with all the pictures etc.
My husband has the same problem on his iphone, but he never stays around long enough to see if things eventually load.
For him also, instant loading this morning.
I haven’t had any of the comment problems with reply buttons or arrow buttons for ages.
I don’t use ad blockers. I don’t mind the ads I am getting except I hate Zergnet.
tinare
I’m also a luddite. But, on my iPad things were loading very slowly and often it would just crash. This morning it opened up quickly and perfectly.
Thistle313
Infrequent commenter here. Quite often site will simply not load on my iphone (safari). Generally I can wait a bit and retry and it will load. I have wondered if different ads just have too much bandwidth or something. When it does load, it is very slow, especially for tweets/pictures. Text will load first, then, after some time, the text or tweets, then pics or links within tweets. Also, refreshing the page will sometimes bounce me to the top of the post, which is ok if there are only a few comments and annoying when there are 60+. Today everything loaded very quickly on my phone.
Computer has windows10/chrome and no real issues. On my kindle with silk browser, it can be slow to load, but it has never not loaded. I have not noticed the problem with bouncing to the top of the post on refresh on either the kindle or the computer.
HTH
dmsilev
Re: item 11, the visual and text tabs seem to be reliably appearing on first loading a given page, whereas before I often saw just the text tab and had to do the forced refresh thing.
Safari (on Mac and iPad).
WaterGirl
@Thistle313: Appreciate your comment and detailed info. You haven’t indicated whether all of those things are still happening today with the ads turned off.
Are some or all of those things still happening today?
Ken
Windows 10 laptop, Firefox 88.0.1. Visual editor still not working – same symptoms, text area not taking mouse clicks or keyboard input. That’s the only problem I’ve ever had with the site.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Since the visual /text tab issue was intermittent before, can you keep an eye on that for a few days?
I want to be sure this isn’t just one of the times that the visual/text tabs are behaving.
Ken
@Ken: Windows 10, Firefox 88.0.1. Visual tab not working when I click reply or edit either. So it’s a #10 from your list.
This was intermittent before, sometimes it would start working after I clicked refresh, and sometimes after starting a new browser session. I haven’t seen it working yet today, but that’s the joy of “intermittent,” isn’t it?
Adam Lang
On an iPhone 12, latest iOS, Safari with an ad blocker:
clicking the ‘show on front page’ link for a story, then clicking a link that takes me to a different site, then clicking “back”, takes me back to BJ but with the expanded post un-expanded, which typically means me going to somewhere much later in the front page than I have seen. This should be fixable via Ajax’s ability to set anchors on a click even if you aren’t changing URL.
Also, sometimes but not always, clicking on links to individual tweets (the link in the date) just does nothing. On those occasions, a long-press will as usual load a preview of the tweet, but if you then click the ‘open’ button nothing happens and you are just still on BJ.
Also I don’t know if this counts as a bug, but I see pretty Twitter previews on my desktop machine’s Safari (with an ad blocker based on an admitted divergent but still similar version of the same codebase) and see them on my phone on other sites, but there seems to be no way to get anything but the simple previews (no embedded images, no previous-tweet-in-the-chain, simple formatting) on my phone at BJ. And there is no longer any way to cheat and tell the site that my phone is really a desktop machine so please use that formatting. This is REALLY ANNOYING.
All still happening. The Twitter link thing happens on the most recent set of Twitter links prior to this post.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: @Ken:
I believe that these are two separate issues. dmsliev, on the Mac with Safari, was experiencing the bug that we started seeing shortly after rollout, where occasionally/sometimes the visual tab wouldn’t show up.
Ken is experiencing the issue that first started as soon as Firefox rolled out version 85.0.
It’s possible that the ads are/were related to the dms issue.
It’s clear that Ken’s issue is strictly Firefox-related.
If anyone else has or had either of these two issues, please chime in to let me know whether they are gone or are still there.
shorter: More data points are helpful!
Johnny's mom
Safari, iPhone 6s (they aren’t extinct. yet. my niece yesterday “you still have a button!”) loaded perfectly this morning for the first time in about a week, maybe a little less. Seemed like forever. (I can quit any time I want to. I just don’t want to.)
WaterGirl
@Adam Lang: I don’t understand what you mean by “twitter preview”. Can you please send me a screen capture from the desktop where you can see “pretty twitter previews” and a screen capture (from the same post and including the same tweet) from a device where you don’t see the pretty twitter previews?
That will tell me a lot. thank you.
patrick II
Hello. I am writing in the Visual mode, which was not working in Firefox.
It seems to work now.
xxxxxxxxxxx Edit xxxxxxxxxxxxx
I had to go to text mode to edit before.
The edit works too. Firefox 88.0.1
edit:
DESKTOP
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor
3.40 GHz
Windows 10 Home
OS build 19042.985
WaterGirl
@Johnny’s mom: Hi there. For some obscure reason, WordPress does not like nyms/names with apostrophes.
So every single comment with a nym that contains an apostrophe (Johnny’s mom) will have to be manually approved before it shows up for everyone.
Some people choose to leave out the apostrophe, some replace it with an asterisk (*) or some other thing.
Just wanted to let you know.
WaterGirl
@patrick II: Hi patrick. Can you keep an eye on that for a few days and come back and confirm whether it’s consistently working properly or whether?
Also, what devices/OS/browsers are you testing from?
edit: I see you identified Firefox. What device and OS are you using?
patrick II
@patrick II:
The reply works in Visual too. It did not before.
Switching to text mode did not bring a lot of (what appears to me as garbage code, but I am sure very meaningful) along with it.
That is better too.
Firefox 88.0.1 (64-bit)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx edit xxxxxxx
Although, since I switched to text mode, the visual did not show up when I edited, so I am editing in text.
jeffreyw
Firefox 88.0.1; Adguard; Win 10 desktop
Issue 1) After I have commented, the back arrow will work as it should once, then usually it takes me to my comment when it should have taken me to another comment in the chain that I have been following by clicking on the reply to user links.
Issue2) Often, when I have reached the end of the tread and hit refresh to load more comments, I am taken to the top. Seems random, sometimes it does it 2 or 3 times in a row. I am learning to note the comment number on the last comment so I can scroll down to when I wanted to be.
Ole Phat Stu
Improvement : Kaspersky no longer objects that your certificates don’t mactch the site :-)
WaterGirl
@patrick II: Good to know.
It would be interesting/helpful to know whether visual would continue to work properly until/unless you switch to text mode.
I imagine that’s a test that will need to wait for another day after you have closed your browser and closed all BJ tabs and you open up a fresh new BJ post. Maybe keep an eye on that and let me know?
patrick II
@WaterGirl:
DESKTOPAMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor3.40 GHzWindows 10 HomeOS build 19042.985
I am editing what I wrote earlier in visual and the garbage has returned.
I would type some of it in, but it would probably screw up this text. The word fragment appears prominently and = “1”.
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: Are you describing what typically happens?
Or what is happening now?
NotMax
Repeating word for word as given in Mr. Cole’s thread, all still ongoing:
Final line in any single-spaced list displays double-spaced in Firefox. This appeared when the relaunch went live and has persisted ever since. Does not occur on any other site have visited.
Win 10 Pro 64 bit (Version 2004, Build 19041.985), FF 88.0.1.
Also have lately noticed the righthand side slide-out notification often does not show up for maybe a half hour or so, even after multiple refreshes of a comment thread, when a newer front page post has been published. Especially prevalent during the wee hours, blog time.
Inconsistent but noticeable – after clicking Post Comment that comment as well as any immediately following it do not show up until two or three or four refreshes have been done.
WaterGirl
@Ole Phat Stu: I would not have predicted that one!
I was not aware that that was even happening. What device/OS/browser?
WaterGirl
@patrick II: Thanks! I moved that info to the original comment.
There go two miscreants
Here’s what I commented the other day:
Going down the list of issues:
1. Never happens
2. Have not had this happen, but I rarely edit.
3. If the Visual tab is working, @nym shows up; if not working, tab is blank, but @nym code shows up in Text tab (along with mice). Of course, the Visual tab is working at the moment!
4. Don’t use the phone to surf.
5. No tablet.
6. Only the twitter-heavy threads are slow, even then not terrible.
7. Forgot to note this one the other day. Back arrow works fine unless I have commented. Then it is unreliable — often starts taking me back to the comment I just entered, rather than the expected location. Once that starts it continues.
8. Same as 7.
9. Hasn’t happened to me (but I don’t comment often).
10. See above; mostly doesn’t work, sometimes does.
11. I think I have only seen this in the comment box, not at all in the reply popup. Refresh always seems to cure this, but the Visual tab doesn’t always work. For a while I was checking the Visual tab on every post, even if I didn’t comment, but I have fallen out of this habit lately.
12. I haven’t paid much attention to the recent comments list.
I do not use an ad blocker, but I run a large Hosts file that blocks most ad sources. I probably will turn to an ad blocker instead, because the Hosts file is getting to be a nuisance to maintain. (I do chip in to help support the site.)
patrick II
Kaspersky is aware that Kaspersky Protection Extension plugin has been listed as non-recommended in the Mozilla FireFox add-on store. According to Mozilla, Kaspersky Protection Extension doesn’t correspond to the criteria of recommended extensions for its browser, as listed below.
WaterGirl
@NotMax:
This happens when a post that has been scheduled to go up at a certain time – like On the Road, or Anne Laurie’s morning COVID post.
If it doesn’t publish at the time that was set, and someone goes in and forces it to post without changing the scheduled time, it can appear that a post was up and that it wasn’t showing up in the fly-out.
David Anderson also occasionally schedules his morning post in advance, so it can happen with his post, too, when that happens.
Using OTR as an example, the way to know if this is occurring is to check the BJ front page to see if the On the Road post shows up there but is STILL not showing in the fly-out.
If it does show up on the front page but does NOT show up in the fly-out, then we have a bug.
jeffreyw
@WaterGirl:
I was describing today’s functioning in an edit to my comment and the page suddenly and without input returned to the main page.
Today, a back button push sent me to my comment instead of the reply I expected to see. Now the comment box is text only.
WaterGirl
@There go two miscreants: Thank you!
Which problems of the ones you have identified are you still seeing today, with the ads off?
There go two miscreants
@There go two miscreants: Visual tab working on reply popup!
However, NOT working on Edit (Visual field also blank). Text tab has original text plus mice.
WaterGirl
@patrick II: I had never heard of Kaspersky until the previous comment this morning.
I assume that your comment at #27 was posted somewhere? And that IKaspersky Protection is non-standard, so we don’t need to be concerned with the Kaspersky complaint about certificates?
WaterGirl
@There go two miscreants: That’s good news!
But are you still seeing all the other issues you described?
MattF
I’ve seen the comment-box appear without the ‘visual’ tab twice this morning— once on iMac and once on iPad. Both using Safari, and I use an ad blocker (Magic Lasso).
laura
Samsung AS20 with an ad blocker. The site is sticky and sometimes very slow to load. And I love this site and wish I had better comments.
NotMax
As you asked, every add-on installed in my Firefox:
Adblock Plus
CookieMaster
Custom Scrollbars
Disconnect
Easy Youtube Video Downloader Express
Ghostery
HTTPS Everywhere
Image Block
Javascript Toggle On and Off
NoScript
Open Image in New Tab
Privacy Badger
Privacy Settings
Select After Closing Current
Undo Close Tab
.
None – zero – of the anomalies I mention above in #23 have ever been observed or encountered on any other web site visited (and I poke around the web a lot, using the same FF with the same add-ons).
Mag
This was the first time in months that I was able to read BJ on my woefully old iPhone, which is running iOS 12.1.2, and its version of Safari. There was some slowness loading tweets, but everything else loaded albeit with a slight delay as I scrolled down the page. Normally, with ads on, only the masthead loaded and the first headline on the page; nothing more no matter how long I waited.
So I had been using Firefox for iOS version 33 for BJ and it loaded slowly. Now with ads off, everything but tweets loads really quickly with ads off and no delay of posts or comments appearing as I scrolled down the page
I am not using ad blocker with either browser
I’ve never had any problems loading BJ on Mac OS using the latest Chrome browser with or without ads. I am using EFF Privacy Badger on MacOS.
namekarB
MacOS Big Sur Version 11.3
Google Chrome Version 90.0.4430.212
All is well so far
Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus
Android Version 9
Page loading noticeably quicker. Previously images were slow to load whether 4G or Wifi
WaterGirl
@MattF: So it appears that bug is unrelated to the ads.
We will know that for sure if you click on this, which is just above the comment box, and then the visual tab appears.
*You don’t want to click on that if you have already started to write a comment, because clicking that reloads the page and you will lose what you had previously typed. (unless you copy the text before clicking)
Can you see if clicking on that if the visual tab isn’t there will consistently make the visual tab appear?
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: Ok, will do. I’ll try to remember to send you an update mid-week.
WaterGirl
@laura: Two questions:
You are saying that is still true today, with the ads off?
What does “sticky” mean?
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I don’t recall asking about add-ons. Did I? If so, maybe I’m losing my mind.
There go two miscreants
@WaterGirl: Back button seems to be behaving today, also got the Visual tab right away on this reply popup. Switching between Visual and Text works correctly — no mice in Text tab, what I have typed is preserved. Switching back to Visual, everything is preserved.
ETA — Edit this time gives me the Visual tab working. Switching tabs also works fine.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Thank you!
I know that some people think that the followup questions can be a pain, but we need good, verifiable information in order to figure out where to go next.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
You asked about an ad blocker, which is an add-on.
WaterGirl
@There go two miscreants: That’s great news! Now we just need to confirm that it really is behaving that way consistently.
So it will be a big help if you can keep your eye on that for a few days, and let me know if/when it stops consistently behaving.
MattF
@WaterGirl: The comment-box problem seems rarer now, and in the past, reloading has always ‘fixed’ it. If I see it again, I’ll try reloading.
Ten Bears
M$ Surface Pro, Windows 10, Edge – no problems
“Life’s Good” Android knockoff, latest, Chrome – no problems
Spouse’s six month Mac laptop, latest, Safari – no problems
You’re not tied into Disqus, are you? Their platform seems to be rattling apart.
Appreciate no ads though, though ya’ gotta’ admit, Gut-Wrenching Tragedy of Dog the Bounty Hunter & the Alaskan Bush People has gotta’ be the best name of a post-punk rock ‘n roll band since … post-punk.
WaterGirl
@Ten Bears: Thank you.
Are you saying that there are no problems NOW, with the ads off?
Or that you never have problems, even with the ads ON?
You are correct – we do not use Disqus.
Fair Economist
FWIW I use Safari and Opera on a Mac, and Samsung Internet on an Android, and I have only experienced one of those problems. When I make a post to a thread, the back arrow takes me back to my post rather than where I was reading. So the problems are definitely platform-specific
Obviously removing ads didn’t fix anything for me because almost nothing was wrong.
My one problem is unaffected.
jeffreyw
The back button is working as expected, once. Subsequent click took me to my last comment. Several times today. I haven’t seen the return to the top of the post on refresh yet today.
satby
For me the site without ads is finally working like a normal website, including Tweet heavy posts like the covid threads. Kindle 8th Gen, current Silk browser, both based on Android.
On my Google Pixel 4a, using Chrome: lightning fast! I almost never use my phone to read the blog though.
On my Lenovo Android tablet, current Chrome version: also good. People have bitterly complained about the”back button” since way before the latest upgrade, and I never noticed or cared about that. Seeing both tabs on the comment box pretty consistently this morning.
Honestly, it’s the first time in months that I’ve enjoyed reading the blog. It had become so aggravating I would bail after a few minutes.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Hardware: iPad Air (1st gen)
OS: iOS 12.5.3
Browser: Chrome and Safari
Symptoms: Images and screenshots take a while to load (on the order of 30 seconds or so). Page is largely unresponsive until they do. Problem was a little worse with the ads, but not significantly so. I’m willing to chalk it up to old hardware, but figured it might be a useful data point.
H.E.Wolf
I also use Firefox 88.0.1. No ad block software. Mac Mini, currently running MacOS Sierra, version 10.12.6.Today, this comment (initial comment on the thread), Visual mode works fine. So does Text mode.[Edit function in Visual mode defaults to a double-return between paragraphs, but allows me to remove the superfluous return.] [2nd edit will only let me use Text mode, and adds multiple line returns. Visual mode shows a blank editing box.] [3rd edit, still in Text only, no VIsual, took out all line returns.]
Percysowner
@WaterGirl: When ads were on, I was having problems with Replies. the Reply link did not show up, at least in visual. I did find that turning off my adblocker fixed the issue. UBlock origin, Mac OSX 10.14.6 (Mojave) on Waterfox Classic 2021.04.2.
Skepticat
I hesitate to type this out loud, but I have almost no problems. I was going to say I have none, but when I started this comment, the page allowed only text rather than visual; however, I consider that a very minor annoyance rather than a problem.
MacBook Pro 2019, OS 11.2.3
Firefox 88.0.1
AdBlocker
Good luck.
Fair Economist
@jeffreyw: Yes, I’ve noticed that back button behavior. If I’m in a thread, and hit the @link to view another comment, and then hit another @link, the first back button push undoes that second @link as it should, but the second takes me to my most recent post, rather than to where I was when I hit the first link.
So it’s like an @link to my post replaces my base reading position, but not @link views.
If I leave the post and come back, it “forgets” the position problem and everything is great unless/until I make another post.
This bug is fully reproducible for me on the Mac. Don’t remember for the Android.
Jay C
I’ll be a good Jackal and weigh in to state that I have rarely had any consistent *problems* with the site, per se: at not AFAICT. I follow BJ on mainly two devices:
Laptop: HP PC (W10/Chrome)
iPad: (8gen/iOS 14.5/Safari)
and aside from the iPad-normal slow scrolling/loading on the latter (I’m guessing “iPad-normal” since this is not the only site this happens to), Balloon Juice seems to work pretty much as designed.
But of course, I will chime in with any mis/mal/dys-functions I encounter,
kmax
I rarely comment so I do not run into the problems listed for commenting.
I find the site works pretty well for me.
I use Ghostery and Malwarebytes Pro on my notebook and contribute to the site via Paypal.
90% of my time on the site is on Windows 10 64 bit, current with updates.
HP Notebook, EliteBook.
Chrome Version 90.0.4430.212 (Official Build) (64-bit)
About the only thing I notice is when scrolling with my down arrow the page will freeze from time to time, assume something is loading. Freezes are short in duration. My morning refresh loaded in 6 seconds.
10% of my time on the site is on my phone. Samsung S7 running Android 8. No updates have been applied to this phone in ages as it is out of Samsung’s support window. Chrome is pretty current Version 90.0.4430.210.
I use Malwarebytes Pro on my phone. I have really no issues with the site on my phone, other than the fact that 40% of the real estate on the screen is consumed by ads.
WaterGirl
@Percysowner: That’s really helpful information. If you turn your adblocker off to test, now that the ads are temporarily gone, do you have the reply link issue?
It would be really useful to know the answer to that question, if you are willing to give it a try.
JKC
iPhone 11, iOS 14.5.1
On occasion, the “Show Full Post On Front Page” link doesn’t work. I use Safari primarily, although I’ve seen the problem occur on my iPad using Chrome as well.
Agree with other posters that the site is loading much quicker sans ads.
Lurker Dan
Thinkpad, Windows 10, MS Edge, no problems today or recently. No add-ons or ad blockers.
LG phone, Android, Chrome – occasional pop-ups. Had a couple yesterday, though I do not remember what they were for. Which make them very ineffective ads, now that I think about it.
Been lurking for years and I have very rarely had tech problems using Windows 7, 10, or Android.
James E Powell
@There go two miscreants:
Testing the back button because it’s the only thing I’ve had any problem with.
ETA: Works.
WaterGirl
@JKC:
That happens when the front-pager inadvertently puts the MORE code in the wrong place.
If you put it inside a blockquote, you will see the words “Show Full Post On Front Page” but the code doesn’t execute.
If you put it inside an image, same thing.
Hell, if you put it inside the code for bold, the same thing happens.
<b>what you want bolded></b>
If you accidentally put the MORE comment before the final command that closes the HTML code, in this case </b> then it doesn’t work.
Whenever you see that the command Show Full Post On Front Page doesn’t work if you click on it, send me an email or make a comment in the thread. It’s a really easy fix.
BruceFromOhio
No adblockers on any of these devices:
Windows 10-20H2 (19042.985) running Firefox 88.0.1
The Visual tab still does not work consistently. Sometimes it enables after two or three comments. I’ve resigned to just using the Text comment tab and mowing through the extra HTML tags to get my comments to display better.
If a post gives me grief, it’s one with long strings of repeated Twitter embeds. I really wish the front pagers would put up a lede and then hide those behind a “Show full post …” the way Anne Laurie does with the COVID updates.
The site loads immediately this morning, noticeably faster. I would HAPPILY pay a subscription if there was a way to turn ads off, although it does occasionally have an upside. I accidentally clicked on a swimsuit ad on LGM, and since then its been nothing but bikinis in the top bar. Better than NRA or t-shirt ads. Thanks, Cupshe!
Kindle Fire HDX-3rd Gen with a Silk browser version that announces itself as Chrome 81 on Fire OS. I’ve given up looking at the site on this device , the browser is laughably out of date and not worth supporting. Takes absolutely forever to load, and most of the Twitter embeds never completely load. Even this morning with no ads it is molasses slow.
iPhone 6s (iOs 14.4.2) everything works a treat and loads pretty quickly. Without the ads, its lightning quick to load on a wifi connection.
PJ
@Percysowner: I had a similar problem, but now, since the ads are gone, replying takes me directly to the visual response box (before I couldn’t comment at all unless I clicked the “text” tab.) iPhone 11, Safari 14.4.2, no adblocker.
Loading is also notably quicker.
WaterGirl
@BruceFromOhio: Super helpful info! thank you
Might you be willing to try to load BJ today on the Kindle Fire you have given up on?
I would love to know whether it’s still hopeless or whether that would make it useable. You have other options, but others might not. So this is a case of “no good deed goes unpunished” because you provided such helpful detailed information. :-)
jeffreyw
@Fair Economist: Yes! I’ve taken to clicking on the fly out to load another post, then click on the opposite side to get back. This “cures” the bad behavior – until I comment again.
Editing this comment, I was given a blank visual text box. I clicked on text and got a lot more than I wanted – the dreaded data mice = “1” >
BruceFromOhio
@BruceFromOhio: @WaterGirl: On the Windows 10 device, the comment edit countdown just disappeared immediately, I cannot edit the comment I just submitted.Tried the Kindle, and it was noticeably improved, though the Twitter embeds were slow and last to fully display. Slow scroll and they keep up, quick scroll and they lag. I wouldn’t burn too many cycles on that one, back-compatibility like that should be an edge case, out of scope of the epic until the big stories get tasked. The device is 7+ years old, resources are better spent elsewhere IMO.
ETA: This ‘edit comment’ did not have a timer, though I am still able to come back and comment.
ETA: minor gripe – multiple ETAs via Text tab slowly crush the HTML tags together. It’s like it’s stripping bits out slowly on subsequent edits.
There go two miscreants
Currently rethinking my ad-blocking plans going forward…
Since this is the troubleshooting thread: Visual tab not working on this reply, Text tab has mice as usual in those cases.
drunkenhausfrau
For months, it has been almost impossible to load the site at all… not just slow, it would “auto refresh” and go blank! I assumed it was just my lousy internet (Comcast) and old iPad (recently upgraded to latest OS 12.5.3). Hard to type in comments, hard to get into comments at all. I do not use an adblocker. In fact, sometimes I clicked on ads, just to see if it would help load the site. No.
I have been reading BJ mostly thru John’s Twitter feed and/or on my old iPhone 5S which loads fine, just very small and hard for my eyes.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
@WaterGirl:
Visual Tab not functioning for this reply to your comment.
Text tab has two copies of the code for your nym surrounded by data-mce.
Leave a Comment pop-up box just resized itself while I was typing my previous sentence.
Kaspersky is a major security vendor, anti-virus, malware detector etc, etc. Probably one of the top 5 in the business.
I run Ghostery ad blocker/security tool, uBlock Origin, and DuckDuckGo Privacy Extension, as well as having FireFox [88.0.1] pretty tightly nailed down. For example I get no pictures with Twitter inserts, ever, unless I click to open the twit in a new tab, which suits me just fine.
I can’t see (so far) whether my scrolling issues with the cursor keys are still occurring. In the recent past intermittently a uparrow key press would move me to near the top of the thread, rather than up a couple of lines worth of space, which is what I expect and desire with a cursor key press.
I will comment further on this thread when I see another issue show up.
I suspect you know what a horror shows up in the text box on a reply comment… I usually try to remove the extraneous crap, data-mice and other random HTML bs that doesn’t do anything constructive. Right now I have 6 lines of garbage text of which only about 2/3rds of a line is needed to show the comment I am replying to.
The Visual Tab almost always exists for me, but seldom accepts focus at all. Usually using the refresh text command will enable focus to be put on the Visual Test Box, but not always, and unless I go to lengths to create the ID of the comment I want to reply to, that data is always (mostly at least) lost.
Linux V 18.04.5 LTS on a System76 laptop with Intel® Core™ i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz × 12 … not new but plenty fast.
ETA and I see that @watergirl shows up twice, which is what often/usually (but not always) happens when I need to go to the text box to key in a comment and don’t tune up the inserted HTML full of data-mce and unneeded BS
WaterGirl
@BruceFromOhio:
Totally agree. But still good information to have, so I appreciate the time it took you to check and get back to me.
BruceFromOhio
@BruceFromOhio: I do a refresh on Windows 10 and the Edit Comment countdown is back. And this popped up in the Visual Tab.
LOL good luck chasing that shit down, what a headache!
I’m hanging out paying bills for a little while, let me know if there is anything else you want me to try.
narya
Macbook, BigSur, 11.2.2, Safari: typically no issues (unless you count cheesy ads as an issue :-) ).
iPhone SE, 14.4.1, Safari: can be slow to load, and in landscape mode, top and bottom ads together sometimes take up the whole screen. It usually resolves so I can see some text from posts, but often the bottom ad takes up a third or more of the screen no matter what. I don’t know if that counts as an “issue,” but ad-free is also noticeably faster.
jeffreyw
I will turn off adguard and play around some.
Edit) taken to blank visual edit box, clicked on text tab and removed extra line code.
WaterGirl
@BruceFromOhio: The edit countdown should always last 5 minutes for an individual comment, regardless of how many comments you have made during that time.
If you edit even one character in a particular post, the 5-minute countdown starts again for that particular comment. If, when you are 4.5 minutes into the edit window, the 5-minute edit window begins again, as long as you have saved your edit.
Not sure which edit window you were referring to. Does edit behave for you as I have described above?
WaterGirl
@jeffreyw: thank you!
Tengrain
Mac OS 10.14.6
Safari 14.0.2
Comcast (which this week has been troublesome)
No add blockers other than what is built-in in Safari.
No issues. Everything displays perfectly.
Mo MacArbie
I only comment infrequently but in the past I’ve had that trouble with the back button mentioned above where it just takes me to my last comment. Lenovo laptop with up-to-date Windows 10 (64-bit), regularly-updated Chrome with adblock plus.
Is it happening now? Uh, I’ll let you know after a few more comments…
J R in WV
Visual Tab still visible, still can’t set focus into the box!
Wanted to volunteer the additional data that if I click on the date/time stamp on a comment before I reply to it, then the back arrow works as intended. This time I tried that it worked as intended for 3 iterations, because I had only been 3 places for it to track. I’ll try it on a longer period of surfing a thread and see how that works, and will report back after that.
You might ask other folks to try that as they work thru a long thread… seems like the code base could be taught to invoke the date/time stamp of comments as it pages around, if that would fix the back arrow, which really hacks me off, I like to use it pretty often as I look for data to put into a reply, not wanting to look like a moron by getting things all wrong when I comment. ’cause otherwise I’m so perfect…. hahaha ;~)
ETA: This comment didn’t appear until I refreshed again, at which point back arrow lost any knowledge of having any history to go back to !!! Damn it!
ETA2: If I want to edit or add to a comment and the timer is about to expire, I will frequently just add 3 dots… and save to get 5 more minutes to actually fix or add what I want to.
Frequently I will forget what...no never mind, I didn’t mean to type that at all. ;~)Mo MacArbie
@Mo MacArbie:
The back button is working properly now.
jeffreyw
I’ve been surfing the thread, back button works once and then it takes me to a comment that I have made. If I do not comment it seems to work as expected.
Clicked the edit comment button and was presented with blank visual box again. Clicked text tab and was able to add this.
frosty
No problem with slow loading.
Back arrow works through several steps backward and forward the first few times. At some point it won’t return to the starting point, not sure why but pretty sure it’s busted after commenting. The workaround by clicking on the timestamp always works.
Back button appears to work better now
when replying, visual box is empty, commenter nym shows up in the text box.
No difference in speed with or without ads
I’ve never used ad blockers
I haven’t seen the other problems in your list.
iPhone SE (circa 2016), iOS 13.7, Firefox Daylight 33.1.
BruceFromOhio
@WaterGirl: Typically the behavior you describe is present. Earlier in this thread, my first comment had no Edit Comment link at all. Subsequent comment had Edit Comment but no timer, and I was able to edit that comment.Comment prior to this the Edit Comment and timer were both visible. ETA: This one has the Edit Comment and the countdown timer.
EETA: And the timer resets as described.
Now I see why you guys were referring to them as ‘data mice in the HTML’ I never really noticed it that way, even as I’m modifying it.
EEETA: And multiple updates via Text tab scrunches everything together. Maybe that’s a hint not to do that.
jeffreyw
@BruceFromOhio:
I surfed from #85 by following @links twice, then pushed back button twice. I ended up at one of my own comments rather that at #85. Ad blocker is off.
Noskilz
At home, I view the site on a desktop (Windows 10 pro, Ryzen 7, 64GB memory, chrome browser, no ad-blockers) and I have never really noticed any particular problems.
For the last few days, I’ve been viewing the site on a relative’s HP Pavillion (Win 10, intel core i3-470, 6GB memory, chrome browser, no ad-blockers) and have experienced nothing unusual.
WaterGirl
@Tengrain: Thank you.
Has it always displayed perfectly? I am looking to find out which problems go away when the ads go away.
patrick II
@WaterGirl:
Well, hello, the Visual stopped working again for this reply.
Anyhow, about Kaspersky. It is a suite of software, including anti-virus, that has been developed and owned by a Russian oligarch and was widely used. The U.S. government has since banned it for use in government applications since allegations of it being used as spyware by Russia.
Mo MacArbie
@Mo MacArbie: And now the back button trouble is back, only in Edge in the other thread.
Ruckus
iMac. fully updated, Big Sir, Safari, fully up dated, or iPhone, fully up dated. If any differences will note.
Site loads faster and smoother – in the recent past the site would load and be – jerky, taking what looked like several tries to finish loading, both phone and desk, like twitter sometimes does.
I have visual box showing on both, in several posts i opened on both. It was hit and miss on both with ads and now it’s not, shows visual every time.
Those are my two biggest issues, loading and comment box, both on regular use and editing a comment.
Have a question. If a pay to play system was initiated how much would it cost to have full access without ads? Because I hate ads, with the heat of a nova. They waste my time, my energy and they are, for me a reason not to purchase/use a product. I don’t watch regular broadcast TV, I don’t listen to commercial radio (I had to work with Clear Channel two jobs ago and they are evil) and I use an ad blocker on the computer and phone so that I don’t have to see any of them. The fact that ad blockers are in such demand should tell us how bad so many people hate ads. They are a scourge on modern life. We pay for services that don’t use ads, like Netflix, we use ad blockers, we pay for everything – and all the while the people that sell crap, with the worst ads, make millions and people go hungry. There has to be a limit to how much the rich fuck up our lives so they can have their multiple yachts, multimillion dollar homes, private jets and pompous arrogant, thieving lives.
Sorry, just had to rant for a bit.
BruceFromOhio
@patrick II: … which is unfortunate, the Kaspersky Rescue Disc was a powerful set of tools in the arsenal, and saved my poor virus-laden root-kitted ass at least twice.
J R in WV
OK, just now was in the Just Asking Questions thread, had jumped around some, was surfing the thread quite a bit, posted a comment which didn not show up until I refreshed, then got a ton of new comments.
Then the cursor arrow key — which should move focus a couple of lines at most — took me all the way to the bottom from mid-thread instead. Back arrow was nulled out, nothing to click there, either.
So what ever little bit of code tracks where focus should be now and where should it go when an event moves it elsewhere is completely borken sometimes.
Same laptop/browser,etc.
ETA: Visual tab worked this time for the first time this morning.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
The back button worked mostly OK for me but I notice that it is better, it works as expected now, which it wasn’t always doing. I forgot about this because I had mostly stopped using the back button and just reloaded, it was better, even if not normal.
patrick II
@BruceFromOhio:
Yeah, they were great. Probably still are, but I gave up using Kaspersky for the same reason the government did.
FlyingToaster (Tablet)
IPadPro 10.5in, iPadOS 14.5.1, Chrome 87.0.4280.163, PrivacyPro (VPN/blocker).
The “back” button works correctly twice now; thereafter it goes to the third thing I clicked. To wit:
Good luck.
Ten Bears
@WaterGirl: I can honestly say I’ve never had a problem with the latest version of BJ on any of the multitude of platforms – mostly varying versions of windows, with various browsers – I might have hands on in a given day, certainly not the kinds of problems I’ve had at other websites featuring zergnerts, but I’m not sure I want to pin that on zergnerts. They turn up in the darnedest places and some of those troubles predate.
Though I’ve commented here a more of late, I still think I’m just a lurker, and don’t spend enough time with it to have problems.
4D*hiker
Ipad user. Site loads fast today. Usually loads slow and/or crashes regularly
Redshift
@WaterGirl: My issue with the active party of the comment box getting repeatedly scrolled behind the ad at the bottom of the page is (unsurprisingly) gone with no ads. Android/Chrome/Pixel XL phone.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
My main issue is this:
In fact, the entire site would crash and burn and refuse to download the more recent posts when I checked for an update.
I most frequently use an iPhone for this.
So far, things have been fine today, although I just now checked in. I will note that the ads are tending to ooze around to take over as much of the viewing field as possible, as if they were trying to colonize this into a clickbait site.
satby
@WaterGirl: A Kindle 3rd Gen is really old. Mine (yes, I have 3 I currently use) are 7th, 8th, and a 10 inch 9th Gen.
Redshift
If I’ve posted a comment and then scroll up and click on an @ link in another comment, the back button always takes me back to my comment, not to the one I came from. Happens both with this version and the previous ad version.
Interestingly, though, if I click through a chain of replies, the back button correctly takes me back through the chain except the last time, when it takes me to my last posted comment instead of where I started.
Android/Chrome/Pixel XL phone.
BretH
iPhone 7, safari. Usually very slow to load, like the site fights with the ads for processor time. About 1 of every 4 days I would get “webpage crashed because a problem occurred”.
Today site loaded in a flash, no slowness or issues whatsoever. For me the ads and how that are programmed were definitely the issue.
Redshift
@Redshift: The back button works correctly for a link to another page (like the one above to the earlier post.) It only has this problem for link targets within the page.
satby
I’m honestly amazed and impressed with everyone’s dedication to being able to go backwards multiple times. I obviously am not spending enough time online; I have enough trouble keeping up going forward.
WaterGirl
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: Interesting comment!
WaterGirl
@satby: oh wow, that is old. That’s what I call “older than dirt”.
Gretchen
I was having trouble loading on my IPad late in the week – it would partially show up, blink off, and after several tries just say it won’t load. It’s working fine today.
Redshift
A couple of other unsurprising pieces of data for Android/Chrome/Pixel XL phone, just for the record: loading is a little faster with no ads, but the long Twitter wait is unchanged. I didn’t log that as an issue, I’ve just adapted, load the page, put my phone down until all that loads, then read.
NoraLenderbee
Windows 10. Firefox 88.0.1
Problem #10 (can’t type in Visual tab). Still exists today.
Ole Phat Stu
@WaterGirl: Replying to your #24
Ancient Laptop under Win7, Firefox & AdBlocker.
Kaspersky viruskiller.
Blogging in Germany.
debbie
My only issue has been how long posts with lots of tweets take to load. I just tried the COVID thread from this morning and it loaded fully in less than 10 seconds. Could there be some kind of conflict with them and all the ads?
Frosty Fred
Back arrow has worked properly and repeatedly through a couple of sessions now, for the first time in I can’t remember when. I do have the impression the site is generally loading faster, but have only had the back arrow as an actual misfunction in the past.
Firefox, Mac OS 10.14.6. Macbook Pro.
Frosty Fred
Left the page and edit window had closed when I got back at two minutes in, not sure if that should have happened because that’s not something I often do, but ETA I use an ad blocker (and Paypal).
2nd edit: now the original edit window is open. I swear it wasn’t.
CAM-WA
Site is slow to load on iPhone & iPad, though usually a bit faster on iPhone. With ads off, loading time is marginally better (but front page still takes 15-45 seconds to load to the point where it is able to be read and scrolled…scrolling before it fully loads always makes things worse, so I have to wait until the page is fully loaded).
I use Wipr as an ad blocker, but testing it with the blocker on as well as off shows no discernible difference in loading times.
Ohio Mom
I try to ignore the ads and I guess I am pretty good at that because I didn’t notice they were gone —
but I did notice the site loaded quickly, in one piece. Many times it crashes and reloads itself repeatedly.
I have a very very old iPhone, it think it’s a 7. I will be replacing it soon because the battery is going, and also because I can’t collect Starbucks points anymore — they don’t update this model anymore.
At any rate, good luck and Godspeed, Watergirl!
JimV
This probably old news, and I haven’t had any unusual experiences at this site but I don’t exercise it much–pretty much only read posts, laugh or cry as the case may dictate, then go somewhere else–but I have noticed problems being reported on two other sites I read frequently: Eschaton and Back Reaction. So I assumed some system update might have occurred that affected lots of sites–just guessing.
Windows 7 on an Acer 64-bit laptop using Chrome and Adblock Plus. No issues except the usual complaint about Twitter embeds slow to load. Which is better than it once was, and liveable, but still slower than Eschaton. Good luck with whatever is happening. My guess, what with all the inter-locked systems, is a Cylon attack.
Ruckus
Been away from the blog for a bit and just opened the new post about border patrol agents.
The comment window was text, not visual. So it seems that the issues are not all going away
Went back and reopened and the box came up visual.
Something else I noticed was that before today if I left a post and came back within the comment time window it would have cleared the clock and not let me repair my typing. This time it allowed it.
lurker
Currently the particular laptop I use for casual browsing runs macOS 10.15.7 and I browse this blog on Safari 13.1.3. Minimal if any adblock and similar stuff – I use a different browser if I need to log in to something.
The one issue I sometimes see amounts to slow site loading. Text comes in fine. Pictures can be slow. Embedded tweets are the worst. Often I can see where a tweet should be, initially as white space, then as a placeholder, often with the text of the tweet in the same font as the rest of the post. Eventually, that fills in as the embedded tweet.
That issue is not occurring at the moment. However, it normally only happens infrequently, on the order to 10 percent of the time or less for the tweets, and even less frequently for photos.
I only looked at the blog this evening, as timing of when I browse is hit or miss. No sense of how it behaved earlier as a result. Additionally, I do not have a sense of any kind of variability about this sort of behavior normally, such as time of day these issues occur. Will keep an eye out.
WaterGirl
MONDAY COMMENTS START HERE!
joel hanes
Firefox/Win 10 on a desktop
Last week, the comment box would not accept input in visual mode.
This week it does.
JAFD
@WaterGirl: Good day !
Previously noted glitch seems to have gone away. Smoothly goes everything.
Hope all yon jackals are staying healthy, happy and hydrated.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: This trouble shooting post has been really helpful. I never realized how hard I’ve been making it to comment until I took my gloves off.
Amir Khalid
FireFox (auto-updated) on a Win10 laptop. Visual mode still works only intermittently, back button too.
Barbara
With no ads, I seem to be able to use the visual versus text box for comments. However, that might not be consistent so I will keep monitoring. Win 10 laptop here too.
Dmbeaster
On my tab and phone (Android), the embeds often only post partially. They never fully load, or only after long delay. Refresh does not help. Still happening.
zhena gogolia
I’m not sure how to test the back button when people aren’t really replying to each other.
MisterForkbeard
Just to comment quickly: I haven’t had any problems BEFORE the ad shutoff, and I haven’t had them after either. It’s a little faster now, I guess?
lowtechcyclist
@MisterForkbeard: Same here.
Just Chuck
@patrick II: Eugene Kaspersky is nothing even close to an “oligarch”. I’d consider him personally to be absolutely trustworthy, but he can’t control 100% of what Putin’s government does with his company. I wouldn’t use it either these days.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:There’s a short chain of replies starting at #130 that you can follow up and back.
ETA: And that “up and back” worked for me (Win10, Firefox, ad blocker turned off). But when I did this ETA visual mode was blank and I had to switch to text mode.
dmsilev
To follow up on yesterday’s conversation, this morning I saw one instance of the comment box appearing text-only without the visual tab. So, sadly, that bug can’t be blamed on the ads.
Thistle313
@WaterGirl: sorry just saw this. Site is behaving nicely with ads off. My phone is a tad slower than the kindle or computer, but definitely faster than usual.
patrick II
I am working in Visual mode See!.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Now I am adding some text in text mode. I can see the HTML that was used to bold “See!” in the previous line. That is as it should be.
Thistle313
@WaterGirl: sorry just saw this. Site is behaving nicely with ads off. My phone is a tad slower than the kindle or computer, but definitely faster than usual.
(I am used to working with the programmer on our work website, so I have been trained to give details. LOL)
patrick II
@patrick II: The reply worked in visual mode.
and I can go to text mode and it still works — although four ” “‘s are strewn about over here.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx edit xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Can only edit in text mode. visual was a blank. Perhaps once you have gone to text mode, that is where you stay. also the /nbsp’s have disappeared including the one I used to describe the others.
patrick II
The back button worked through a depth of three.
Haroldo
HP Laptop, Chrome
rikyrah
@MisterForkbeard:
This is me too.
The Golux
I don’t know if this is fixable, but if you put a blockquote at the end of a comment in visual mode, you can’t type below the blockquote unless you switch to text mode. I always have to remember to put some extra text below the text to be quoted before clicking the blockquote icon.
Steeplejack
@The Golux:
A minor but maddening problem (on my Android phone, Samsung browser). Also applies to hyperlinks.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: What version of Firefox? Can you check back in a day or two and let me know if visual mode is still behaving?
WaterGirl
@Geminid: hahaha!
WaterGirl
@Barbara: Appreciate the update. Windows 10 with which browser and browser version?
WaterGirl
@Dmbeaster: Thanks. Can you tell me what phone and tablet models, what OS and what browser and browser version?
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Maybe we need to start a fight in the site troubleshooting thread? :-)
I’ll start, directed at everyone: Your mother wears army boots.
WaterGirl
@patrick II: Now that you have commented, can you try the back button on the same sets of comments (assuming you remember which ones those were).
There may be a pattern of the back button working, through several comments, until you post a comment. At that point, maybe you can back up several times but you eventually end up at the comment you posted?
Still trying to work out the details of the pattern.
WaterGirl
@Haroldo: Just to be super clear, 1-4 were true for you before and are still true now without the ads?
Barbara
@WaterGirl: Firefox, whatever the most recent version is.
Firefox on my mobile phone (Android/Samsung) is still only letting me comment using text.
geg6
#9 sometimes on both my iPhone and PC.
#10 all the time on PC.
I know almost nothing about operating systems, etc. I use Firefox on my PC and whatever it is that is on my iPhone 10.
WaterGirl
@The Golux: That one is easy. You don’t actually have to go into text mode. Just press ENTER twice, and it pops you out of the blockquote for further typing.
Try that and let me know if that works for you.
edit: That’s true on a computer, anyway. I guess I haven’t tried it on a tablet or a phone.
WaterGirl
@geg6: Are both #9 and #10 still true, even now with the ads off?
If they were intermittent, you may not definitively know yet, but if you can, please check back in tomorrow and let me know whether they are still true or not?
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
On a phone there’s no Enter key to press (in that mode).
ETA: Visual mode blank when I edited this comment (Win10, Firefox).
JaySinWA
OKay just now on Chrome 90 on Chromebook I am not seeing the visual and text tabs in the Comment box
ETA after commenting the visual and text tabs appeared on the comment box. They are visible in this reply comment box.
running Ublock origin ad blocker
joel hanes
> what version of Firefox
Firefox 88.0.1 64-bit
Amended report:
Commenting on top-level post: visual mode works immediately
Replying to comment: have to hit the “click here to refresh”
Last week, the “click here to refresh” thing mostly didn’t work for me.
NotMax
For those using Firefox AND having a problem with its back arrow, wondering if – maybe – this workaround to replicate a clickable back function within the browser will alleviate the tsuris.
Here’s a link to the how-to in image form (click on the image there to embiggen), and the following a text explanation of what is in the image:
Step 1: If you don’t already have the bookmarks toolbar enabled, do so by right clicking on an empty area of the address bar or on an empty area of the tab bar to the right of the plus sign (as done in the illustration), move to ‘Bookmarks Toolbar’ and choose ‘Always Show.’ (I have included some other bookmarks on the bookmarks toolbar in the image as demonstration of what the toolbar looks like when stuff is in it.)
Srep 2: Right click on an empty area of the bookmarks toolbar, choose ‘New Bookmark’ and left click on that.
Step 3: This window will appear.
Step 4: Enter the data as shown in the appropriate fields, then click Save. (You can name it whatever you want; I imaginitively chose ‘Back’).
Step 5: Ta-da! You can now click on that to go back.
The placement on the toolbar of this Back bookmark (assuming you have multiple bookmarks on your Bookmarks Toolbar) can be wherever you prefer; move it by dragging it along the Bookmarks toolbar to where you want it to reside.
Gravenstone
Just faffing around on this and trying to reply with a blockquote, comment box did not show Visual/Text. When I reset the Comments box as prompted, that purged the reply information. PC on Chrome, Version 90.0.4430.212
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: Super helpful details, thanks.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
I haven’t been on BJ much lately (too busy!), but #9 happened yesterday on my phone and #10 happened today on my PC. But, ironically, not on this reply. Weird.
Albatrossity
Just here to say that Opera browser (v. 76.0.4017.107) on Win 10 on a desktop computer with a fast internet connection worked fine before, and works fine now. Visual mode works fine. Yes, the tweet boxes in a tweet-heavy post took 1-4 seconds to load previously, and take 1-3 seconds to load now; I think I can live with that. Back button works for multiple backings-up. Since Opera has a built-in ad blocker, I didn’t see ads before, and I sure don’t see them now
ETA – comment editing works fine too
4D*hiker
Ipad user. Site has loaded fast yesterday and today. Previously loaded slowly and/or crashed regularly
patrick II
@WaterGirl: I closed firefox, rebooted my machine, came back to balloon juice clean, and on this reply to your comment Visual mode was unavailable. Text is available, but has some code fragments at the beginning. How necessary is Visual anyway?This is like my first job in the 70’s — code tester. Except then I had to use punch cards and the person directing was a fat old german guy.
Visual mode was not available for editing either.
Nora Lenderbee
Visual mode is back today for me. Firefox 88.01, Win 10, HP laptop.
WaterGirl
@geg6: Interesting!
WaterGirl
@Nora Lenderbee: Great! Can you check back in tomorrow or Wednesday and let me know if it’s consistently back or intermittent? thanks.
BruceFromOhio
Love love love not seeing TFG or any of his spawn in the ad line. Dropped some scratch on the owner’s PayPal to help defray costs while the ad revenue spigot remains closed.
WaterGirl
@BruceFromOhio: Yeah, those Zergnet ads are hideous. It took the ad guy 9 hours to shut the ads down, and during that time I was checking ever half hour or so to see if they were gone.
Seeing all so much ugly 30 or so times made me really cranky. shudder.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Ah, for the heady days when people were expressing upset over toenail fungus ads.
;)
WaterGirl
@NotMax: It was the flashing green alligator that sent me rushing to an Ad Blocker, all those many years ago.
*I think it was an alligator, but it was definitely green, and most definitely flashing.
JaySinWA
@JaySinWA: I neglected to mention I am running Ublock origin ad blocker if that makes a difference.
prostratedragon
I still have problems 1, 6, and 9. Also, on replies especially I get that data-mce-fragment thing that causes the cursor in visual mode not to appear. I usually edit it out in text mode, but even then if I want to use visual as a check on my html, the comment does not appear there.
I’m on a linux desktop with firefox 68.2 –ancient, I know– and AdBlock Plus 3.10.2, but everything still works elsewhere. Site loading has often been a bit slow even without the ads but is probably better than with the ads despite the ABP. Loading is pretty good on my Android phone. I seldom use markup when I comment from there, so don’t know whether the data mice problem exists on that platform.
Thanks for all your hard work.
TomatoQueen
About to sign out of the gov’t laptop (Edge, Win10, HPProBook, gov’t security software no longer identified, all social media blocked, all web-based email blocked, but a copy of Merlin’s original pic went sailing through Outlook). Edge and Bing, Bing and Edge, what are they up to, well, they are It by default. And I note today on the Bing search page top left result for b-j a box called Trending with pics below it from the blog, and is the very first one the latest one of a certain Blogfather’s house? Of course it is. This is with all ads off. No 405 errors today. The visual tab fails to function completely.
OldDave
The only thing I’ve not previously seen mentioned – and something that could be unique to my Win 7 PC – is a process will start exhibiting a nasty memory leak, growing to a 1 GB or larger working set. A few of those and things get slow. Often those can be traced to Balloon Juice tabs (kill the offending process, see what tab crashes). This is made worse by SWMBO’s habit of creating a new tab for each post here. True for both Firefox and Chrome. I’ve made sure all such overly large processes have been killed and will review things in another day or two.
kh
iOS 14.4.2 iPad Mini 4, site used to be really slow right across the board, and sometimes seemed to stall out completely, now it’s snappy and normal – safari or firefox (both “current”)
Mac OS Mojave, i7 Mac Mini – used to be a quite slow, even over ethernet, with gigabit connection – today it felt quite quick – safari or firefox (both up to date)
Plus I just made an edit inside of four minutes and it was very smooth
BruceFromOhio
@NotMax: will happily tolerate toe nail fungus ads over TFG fungus ads.
Chris T.
Right now I have only the text editor tab. Host is MacOS, browser is Firefox 88.0.1, lots of plugins including adblock and noscript but have BJ excepted as needed. Site is definitely faster now, but the comment boxes still seem flaky. Sometimes I get both tabs, sometimes not.
davecb
On Fedora 31 Linux and Chrome 90.0.4430.212 / Firefox 88.0 the site is performing normally. Nym and comment editing work as before
Alison Rose
When I navigate to this post from David today, I don’t get the “next post” arrow at the top. If I go to the home page, click on the top post, and then click back through the posts, I have the “next” and “previous” arrows on all posts except that one, which only has the “previous” arrow.
I’m using Chrome 90.0.4430.212 on desktop.