Last modified: 2011-01-25 00:06:15 UTC
Apparently, attempting to load any Wikipedia article crashes my browser. I can view the front page at http://www.wikipedia.org/, but entering either "calcium" or "Big_O_Notation" in the search bar and middle-clicking creates a new browser tab, spins for a few seconds, then kills the browser. [Incidentally, there's no option on the front page to submit a bug report, and clicking meta-wiki also kills the browser.] The browser dies with Exit 11. Another way to the same kill is to click on a link pointing to an article from another web page. For example, the QuantumAlgorithmZoo page has a pointer to a wikipedia article explaining Big_O_Notation; clicking on that link kills the browser. This is a new problem, things worked fine before. I think I used Wikipedia within the last week, but it might be as much as three weeks ago. I'm running a very old browser, Mozilla 1.2.1, Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20030225 and I don't use Flash. Most cookie are disabled. I assume you've recently revised the stuff surrounding each article to use some new exotic web feature which poisons my old browser. Any advice you could provide would be appreciated-- perhaps a text-only entry point? Rich Schroeppel rcs@xmission.com PS: I hope the buttom labeled Commit means "Submit Bug Report".
(In reply to comment #0) > I assume you've recently revised the stuff surrounding each article to > use some new exotic web feature which poisons my old browser. > Any advice you could provide would be appreciated-- perhaps a text-only > entry point? > We did no such thing. Your browser should not allow unexpected input to crash it; if it does, that's a bug in your browser. Recommend INVALID on those grounds.
(In reply to comment #0) > I assume you've recently revised the stuff surrounding each article to > use some new exotic web feature which poisons my old browser. It also crashes my older mozilla but only with javascript enabled. A small sacrifice for "Usability" (whatever that means... apparently nothing to do with "use" or "ability").
(In reply to comment #2) > It also crashes my older mozilla but only with javascript enabled. > > A small sacrifice for "Usability" (whatever that means... apparently nothing to > do with "use" or "ability"). > Can you confirm that it's indeed the usability JS that causes this? Is there something we can do about it?
*** Bug 21752 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Seems to be cross-platform, from bug 21752: Mac OS 8.6, "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC; fr-FR; rv:1.3.1) Gecko/20030723 wamcom.org".
I can confirm this bug Win XP Pro SP2 Mozilla 1.7.2.2004080302 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803 As mentioned by Rich Schroeppel, the home page loads OK, but if I navigate to "English" or any other article, it crashes. Also, as mentioned by Splarka, it does not crash if javascript is disabled. I think it's caused by the current banner "Please read: A personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales." The banner is absent from the home page and does not appear when javascript is turned off. The banner is javascript:goToDonationPage(), redirecting to this URL: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Appeal2/en?utm_source=2009_Jimmy_Appeal9&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fundraiser2009&target=Appeal2 Mozilla.exe Error signature AppName: mozilla.exe AppVer:1.7.20040.14766 ModName: js3250.dll ModVer: 4.0.0.0 Offset: 000181c5 js3250.dll, Netscape 32-bit JavaScript Module located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\mozilla.org\GRE\1.7.2_2004080302 I hope this info helps. Maybe the bug will pass once the banner is gone, but in the meantime, it's inconvenient to turn off javascript when it's necessary for so many other sites. If I come across links to Wiki, I have to copy them into Internet Explorer.
Now that the fundraising banners are gone, does this still happen?
I found the original suggestion to turn off scripting was helpful. It allowed me to use the site, albeit with somewhat reduced functionality. (This also fixed some problems I was having with Google and Google News!?) I needed scripting for some other sites, so I was turning it on & off frequently. Sometime, maybe in January, I forgot to turn off scripting, and discovered that my Wikipedia problem had gone away, and things now worked even with scripting ON. Similarly, Google and Google News again worked with scripting turned ON. I can only guess that the banners were the problem. I suspect in the case of Google that their search-completion feature was the problem. I can't imagine how that relates to the WP funding banner.
I don't think it was solely the fundraising banners. Shortly after they were gone, Mozilla 1.7.2 still crashed with javascript enabled. Eventually the problem went away, so I figured the source of the problem had been found, but there were no updates to this thread at the time. Long before the Wiki problem, Google maps would crash it too. Started right after some Win XP updates, and still persists.
Both had 0.001% market share in oktober 2010 and judging from above reply the problem was accidentaly fixed (?)
