Site causing blanking of browser

[dudleybloke]

Interestingly it only seems to happen on my older android devices, my kitkat phone has no problems.

[northwest monkey]

RacingPete said:

We have tried all day to get a blank page on our test devices and it is working fine every time, so can I ask for more information to try and narrow down this issue.

What phone are you using:
Operating system (and version):
Browser (and version):
What page are you accessing:
Does this happen every page visit:
If not how often:

Answer as many or as little as you can and we will try and sort this.

Samsung GT-I8160
Android Version 2.3.6
Dunno - the one that says "Internet"
mobile.pistonheads.com/gassing
yes

Also works for me if I turn off "Enable JavaScript" although I'm guessing other websites won't work now. I've not made any recent changes to the phone - it just stopped working with PH last week.

[shocks]

Gone for the Retro look PH ?



With a bit of faffing I can get back to forums in Firefox (32.0.3), but safari is just borked.

Turning on dev con on foxy shows a lot of the issues are stemming from

c.amazon-adsystem.com/aax2/amzn_ads.js
trc.taboola.com (several no content on the haymarket links with long wtt)
cloudfront.net (more .js wtt / get slow query)

ETA : MBP / OSX 10.9.4 - yep i know it's not a mobile but the issue is not constrained. Also happens on my MBA / Yosemite

Edited by shocks on Thursday 27th November 00:54

[RacingPete]

Thank you all for the browser details - we are trying to pick off the easier ones to replicate here and see if we can see the issues.

[dudleybloke]

Its affecting every browser on android 2.3.7 but its not having the same issue on android 4.4.2.

[rscott]

northwest monkey said:

Samsung GT-I8160
Android Version 2.3.6
Dunno - the one that says "Internet"
mobile.pistonheads.com/gassing
yes

Also works for me if I turn off "Enable JavaScript" although I'm guessing other websites won't work now. I've not made any recent changes to the phone - it just stopped working with PH last week.

Not directly related, but Samsung have released a 4.1.2 upgrade for that phone (it is an Ace 2, isn't it?) . Definitely worth upgrading.

[northwest monkey]

rscott said:

northwest monkey said:

Samsung GT-I8160
Android Version 2.3.6
Dunno - the one that says "Internet"
mobile.pistonheads.com/gassing
yes

Also works for me if I turn off "Enable JavaScript" although I'm guessing other websites won't work now. I've not made any recent changes to the phone - it just stopped working with PH last week.

Not directly related, but Samsung have released a 4.1.2 upgrade for that phone (it is an Ace 2, isn't it?) . Definitely worth upgrading.

Yes it is - how do I do that?

[rscott]

northwest monkey said:

rscott said:

northwest monkey said:

Samsung GT-I8160
Android Version 2.3.6
Dunno - the one that says "Internet"
mobile.pistonheads.com/gassing
yes

Also works for me if I turn off "Enable JavaScript" although I'm guessing other websites won't work now. I've not made any recent changes to the phone - it just stopped working with PH last week.

Not directly related, but Samsung have released a 4.1.2 upgrade for that phone (it is an Ace 2, isn't it?) . Definitely worth upgrading.

Yes it is - how do I do that?

If you download & install KIES on your PC, that should offer to update the firmware.

[northwest monkey]

rscott said:

northwest monkey said:

rscott said:

northwest monkey said:

Samsung GT-I8160
Android Version 2.3.6
Dunno - the one that says "Internet"
mobile.pistonheads.com/gassing
yes

Also works for me if I turn off "Enable JavaScript" although I'm guessing other websites won't work now. I've not made any recent changes to the phone - it just stopped working with PH last week.

Not directly related, but Samsung have released a 4.1.2 upgrade for that phone (it is an Ace 2, isn't it?) . Definitely worth upgrading.

Yes it is - how do I do that?

If you download & install KIES on your PC, that should offer to update the firmware.

Cheers

[Hooli]

dudleybloke said:

Interestingly it only seems to happen on my older android devices, my kitkat phone has no problems.

+1

My Samsung Galaxy Ace on Android 2.3.6 is suffering, yet my work Galaxy S5 on Android 4.4.2 is fine.

Both using the built in browser.

Edited by Hooli on Friday 28th November 13:12

[CC07 PEU]

Any developments on the resolution of this issue?

[monthefish]

RacingPete said:

Thank you all for the browser details - we are trying to pick off the easier ones to replicate here and see if we can see the issues.

That's 3 weeks now, Pete. You must have some sort of handle on the problem now?

[andy43]

Although to be fair I just haven't used my laptop for three weeks sp I've no idea if it's fixed or not.

[RacingPete]

Sorry, I went and got married and had a honeymoon in those 3 weeks - turns out Iceland has better infrastructure than this poor underdeveloped country of the UK - so the testing on this issue was through super fast internet connections and the latest mobiles, so a bit fruitless.

But we have got to the bottom of what is causing the issue, caused by Taboola - I am speaking to them about a fix at the moment - will update when I have more.

[monthefish]

Thanks for the update, and congratulations on the wedding!



I'm aware I may be over-simplyfying things, but the answer seems simple to me;
All Taboola content (which, let's face it, is rubbihh anyway) is immediately disabled and the onus is put on them to resolve it.

I sometimes think that PH is far too soft on its advertisers, and you get the impression the 'tail wags the dog' too often.

[andy43]

Just to report my laptop now works on PH again. Well done on the wedding
But the tail wagging the dog is indeed a problem - who the hell are taboola, scorecardresearch and all the other weird websites that PH 'waits' for?

Abine's do not track me works great at preventing most of it though

[CC07 PEU]

I can confirm that the site is now working again on my mobile so well done for finally getting the issue resolved.

[poocherama]

New Mac Book Pro retina running the latest version of Yosemite. Same result in Chrome and Safari.

Oddly enough if I can navigate onto the forums they're fine.

[RacingPete]

andy43 said:

Just to report my laptop now works on PH again. Well done on the wedding
But the tail wagging the dog is indeed a problem - who the hell are taboola, scorecardresearch and all the other weird websites that PH 'waits' for?

Abine's do not track me works great at preventing most of it though

Taboola - they do the "more like this stuff" at the bottom of some pages, getting pretty common across the internet on news sites
Scorecardresearch - used for measuring site usage (or display advertising usage), so companies can get stats on who views what, and the links between different sites and demographics.

Most of them are either trying to serve something to the page (outside of our code world), or trying to monitor how well that thing served to the page.... it is all 1984 really!

[RacingPete]

poocherama said:

New Mac Book Pro retina running the latest version of Yosemite. Same result in Chrome and Safari.

Oddly enough if I can navigate onto the forums they're fine.

Looks like a glitch in the generation of the homepage - still happening?