HAL: It can only be attributable to human error.
This time of year Awards Daily readers are treated to a flood of trailers and clips, flashy FYC ads decorate the sidebars and banners, and traffic increases to peak capacity. All these factors put a strain on the site server, and can stress some individual’s laptops and PCs more than others. We’ve heard from several you about problems with browsers crashing or cursors freezing, and we’re trying to get a sense of patterns so we can find and fix the issue. Sasha has been refining the site layout for days, and I’ve seen noticeable improvement on my own screen as the elements of the main page seem to snap together faster than ever.
But since we’re never able to replicate all the worst troubles being reported, it’s really helpful to hear details of any snags or slowdowns any of you are experiencing. If anyone is getting specific error messages before a crash, or if any of you have found your own way to work around the speed bumps, we’d be really interested to hear what you’re seeing. Please tell us about any new weirdness you might be encountering when you visit the site. The more we know, the easier it will be to identify and eliminate the trouble spots. You can let us know what’s happnening in the comments or email either of us directly.
awardsdaily@gmail.com
ryanadams.ad@gmail.com
It’s been the front page for me, too. Freezing up.
18 hours into the home page rebuild. How’s the new layout working for everyone now?
Well, I’m here for the first time in a while. Ryan, I’ve been getting “running script” errors that have basically shut down my computer, as well as some other computers that I’ve used. Good to see that it’s clearing up, I guess.
I am using safari. This didn’t used to be a problem for me but some of the big flash ads (depending on my luck) are making it almost impossible for me to navigate this site 🙁
I went to Opera (from Firefox) and now I can see the “ghost comments”.
Tero, that’s one of the strangest symptoms we’ve heard yet. Baffling.
I posted several days ago about having trouble accessing the front page (but not inner pages) at work using IE7. Well, today, I had no trouble with the front page, so something is obviously working better.
What really irritates me is that I get to see at least two different time zones all the time.
For example, the front page just told me that the Streep, Close etc. thread had 13 comments, yet I can only see 6 of them, no matter where I click it.
Sometimes my posts have disappeared completely.
Today seems fine, though I clicked “Stop” before the page fully loaded. Yesterday, however, my entire desktop shut down during loading and I swore I was never coming back (so much for that idea). I’m on Google Chrome here at work. At home on IE I won’t visit the page because I get that “Do you want to stop running scripts” message box. Obviously I’ll take my chances and keep coming back, but it’s with some trepidation I type the URL into my browser bar now.
at home on IE I won’t visit the page because I get that “Do you want to stop running scripts” message box. Obviously I’ll take my chances and keep coming back
just please be aware that those scripts are nothing harmful — usually just Java or Flash elements that churn through a lot of RAM.
It’s an aggravation, I know. But if anyone gets too frustrated dealing with it, you can temporarily disable JavaScript before you visit the site. Tools/Options/Content tab, there’s a box you can check or uncheck to simplify web pages.
at home on IE I won’t visit the page because I get that “Do you want to stop running scripts” message box. Obviously I’ll take my chances and keep coming back
just please be aware that those scripts are nothing harmful — usually just Java or Flash elements that churn through a lot of RAM.
It’s an aggravation, I know. But if anyone gets too frustrated dealing with it, you can temporarily disable JavaScript before you visit the site. Tools/Options/Content tab, there’s a box you can check or uncheck to simplify web pages. (it will reduce or eliminate some functionality too — so it’s trade-off.)
A few days ago I discovered a Firefox plugin called Memory Fox that does a great job helping to free up RAM after a web page task is complete (a lot of these freezes I think are the result of RAM resource handling). The developer says:
Since the redesign, things have been working very slowly here. Clicking to the “continue reading” or “comments” freezes things up, and scrolling down also freezes things up. I’m on Safari.
Yeah, this site has become a clusterfuck of flash banners – it’s worse than most porn sites. Is the Blade Runner-esque flood of banner ads a way to make this site your full-time job?
Is the Blade Runner-esque flood of banner ads a way to make this site your full-time job?
AD is not supported by donations from viewers of PBS
You might be surprised to learn that “publicist” “critic” and “filmmaker” are full-time jobs too. This isn’t a hobby, Glass.
I use google chrome, been having problems for quite a while. Yesterday everything was working fine but today the shockwave player crashed 3 times, it has taken nearly 15 minutes to get on to the site. I know you are working hard on it (good luck!) but I think I’ll skip the site for a few days before trying again.
Whoops. Just after I posted that Michael Fassbender started running and everything froze. I had a feeling he was the culprit. j/k
But it does seem like everything’s fine once the ads stop moving.
It seems like it depends. Yesterday it was so-so today it’s been terrible. This is the first time I’ve been able to get it to load completely. But the ads aren’t moving anymore either. Hmm… Are they supposed to be? Or is the fact that they’ve stopped moving the reason I can get on? Hmm…
(I have no idea how this stuff works. lol)
I alerted Sasha a couple months ago that my AOL browser was freezing, but my Firefox wasn’t. But in the last few days, the AOL problem has cleared up, which is appreciated greatly.
It accounted for my not posting much recently.
Was working perfectly 7 hours ago, On google Chrome, now pages load slowly and theres lag when I scroll
I need to use my iPhone to access this site, if I use either my PC or laptop then The screen stalls and I get a box asking me if I want to stop running this script, eventually I have to just close all the programs running in my computer to make this go away. My brother, who also lives in the Sydney area in Australia, has the exact same problem, it’s been going on for several months now.
I’ve run into the exact same situation as The Great Dane on all my computers at home and at my business, and using Firefox has gotten around whatever the problem is.
Whew, I thought I was the only one. This site crashed Google Chrome and while it worked once on Explorer, it crashed again last night, slowing everything down for a few minutes before finally admitting to crashing. It seems to be fine now. I think there ought to be a law saying no ad can be written in a code that a site can’t handle, so we can avoid shit like this from happening again.
I’m on Safari and certain video embeds make me crash. It hadn’t happened for awhile (since you solved it about a month ago), then the last one posted Sat night/early Sunday caused it again. I looked for it earlier to tell you, but…it shut down my internet connection when it appeared onscreen. It’s the one right below the Gatsby pics. If I roll down there for details, I’ll crash again and have to reset my browser.
I am on Google Chrome as well.
I’ve noticed that Safari has no problems whatsoever, but IE crashes on two devices that I often use.
Sorry for the confusion Ryan. You are right on that one. Also, those 4 arrows on your keyboard right below delete. When composing comments I’m trying to post, these arrows do not work at all. I don’t know if it is just the site or my keyboard. It doesn’t happen on my regular e-mail though, when using these arrows. Did that confuse you more?
I’m on Google Chrome and everythings working perfect for me.
I have no problem if I go to awardsdaily.com on Firefox, but if I use Internet Explorer to go to Awards Daily, it freezes all my windows on Internet Explorer, crashes and “kills” all open windows of Explorer.
The same thing happens on ANY of the three computers.
I wanna kill myself everytime I accidentally go to awardsdaily.com on Internet Explorer, because all my open windows are killed off. 🙂
Yeah, the back cursor is so slow in responding. Most of the time, it does not respond at all. Sometimes, my mouse highlights the whole paragraph. But that probably is a result of left clicking so much.
Mark, do you mean clicking back to the main page after reading page 2 of a post or checking comments?
In other words, clicking to individual single articles is fast enough, but returning to the busy main page is slower?