OT - Browser issues?

[Gordon Shumway]

I'm running Firefox 35.0 and for at least the last month I've been having several web sites not displaying all of their functions the way they are displayed with Chrome or Internet Explorer.

For example, on Amazon, many items will have the note "Roll over image to zoom in" and that no longer works in Firefox. In fact the note isn't even there.

Another example is with AT&T mail, I can no longer access my calendar.

Both of these examples work fine with the two other browsers.

Is it something I did to Firefox or is it Firefox?

[FrozenNorth]

Try disabling any extensions you may be using, one of them may be messing up. FF is working fine for me.

[Nil]

On 14 Jan 2015, Gordon Shumway wrote in alt.home.repair:

I thought Firefox 35 only came out a day or two ago. It only appeared as an availailable update for me today.

So far it seems to be working as expected.

[Unquestionably Confused]

Others have provided you with places to look and I suggest that you follow their lead and do so. Go into settings and try disabling the various add-ons and perhaps you'll get lucky.

Computer software is amazing stuff and it can be an amazing PITA when it doesn't work properly.

This is NOT like picking up a battery operated drill and having it fail. In that case you have a narrow range of things which COULD be wrong and you can check it out.

With this software crap, some of the stuff like you're experiencing is like waking up - late - to find your alarm clock is broken and trying to find out why it didn't work. Then, in the end, you find out it's not working because your neighbor's cat had kittens. The two appear to be completely unrelated and yet, there's your problem

[Frank]

I have no problems with it and have the ad block extension. You might try posting in the Firefox ng on news.mozilla.org Lot of knowledgeable people there.

[Mayayana]

There's no way to know the problem from your description. You'd need to look for patterns in the way the page is coded. Extensions could possibly be the culprit, but they usually aren't, despite the fact that they're by far the most widely suspected. Whenever there's any browser problem, half of the respondents will tell you to disable your extensions.

1) Think twice before updating software to "bleeding edge" versions. If you *must* use risky software like Flash it should be kept updated. Otherwise, in most cases you're just working as an unpaid beta tester by getting the latest when it's released, usually for no good reason.

In the case of Firefox, Mozilla has been breaking it by bits and pieces, removing user-friendly functionality to satisfy their boss, Google. (Yahoo has recently contracted to provide default search in FF, but in the past nearly all of Mozilla's $100+ million/year budget has been coming from ad company and privacy enemy Google.) So updating FF is a crapshoot. There's no telling what might have been broken or foisted onto people in their latest remake.

2) Search online for other reports of similar problems, such as "rollovers not working Firefox 35". Someone might have already done the work you're now faced with.

3) My first guess would be javascript settings. My second guess would be the use of unsupported CSS in the webpages. But guess #2 is very unlikely in the latest FF. Unfortunately, newer versions of FF have actually hidden the javascript settings! You can replace them with an add-on:

Then try going to Options -> Content and click the Advanced button next to the javascript option. There are some options there. But what you'll really need to check is the user_prefs, which is an abstruse mess. If you're feeling ambitious, enter about:config in the address bar and click Enter. In the search field enter "dom" (without quotes). Dom stands for document object model. The settings that start with dom relate to what javascript can do. A rollover can be done with CSS, but that's a recent ability and requires a web designer who knows what they're doing. The vast majority of rollover effects use a very old javascript trick. Unfortunately, it's not easy to understand what you're looking at in about:config. I don't see anything specific to rollovers. But you might check that this setting is set to false: dom.disable_image_src_set

The calendar problem could be related to script settings related to opening new windows, but that's just a wild guess. There's no way for anyone to know what's not working with your AT&T webmail. First, most or all of us don't use AT&T. :) Even if we did, you didn't describe what doesn't work. (Have you considered getting your email through a real email program? It's much better functionality than webmail.)

[Mayayana]

| With this software crap, some of the stuff like you're experiencing is | like waking up - late - to find your alarm clock is broken and trying to | find out why it didn't work. Then, in the end, you find out it's not | working because your neighbor's cat had kittens. The two appear to be | completely unrelated and yet, there's your problem |

Actually, that was just your neighbor's theory. :) In fact, it's not working because the electric plug came loose. Or the battery is dead. Or some other discoverable reason.

This is a home repair group, after all, full of handy people. If your hot water heater dies, would you conclude that it doesn't like you, or that it probably died because there's a full moon? Software is far more predictable and systematic than a hot water heater. It's an absolutely dumb machine with few variables. (Software code can't rust or be affected by excessive mineral content.) It's just not always easy to know and/or understand the problem when something is not working as expected.

[Unquestionably Confused]

Easy as all get out if you're very technically savvy and/or a programmer.

What I was trying to convey (apparently you may have missed the humor marked with "") was that with software and computers there can be a myriad of things that go "wrong" or conflict that the typical layman cannot immediately intuit, unlike the example of the power tool that doesn't work.

Remember... "The difference between a computer consultant and a used car salesman is that the used car salesman KNOWS when he's lying to you!"

[Mayayana]

| What I was trying to convey (apparently you may have missed the humor | marked with "") was that with software and computers there can be a | myriad of things that go "wrong" or conflict that the typical layman | cannot immediately intuit, unlike the example of the power tool that | doesn't work. |

I got the joke, and I don't mean to belabor the point.

I'm just pointing out that it doesn't have to be viewed as mysterious. That's a "disempowering" approach. I see so many people who are thoroughly flummoxed by nearly all electronic devices and conclude that only teenagers can understand them. (In fact, most teenagers don't understand them. It just looks that way because they're very good at Facebooking or finding the TV show they want to watch. They're experienced consumers, not superior tech experts.)

Many people don't want to deal with computers and find it tedious, but for any handy person who cares to explore, the information is out there. (Unfortunately there's an awfully lot of it to know. :)

I really don't see a power tool as different. How many "lay people" can take apart their drill and figure out that it needs new brushes, then find a source for those brushes and replace them? (Much less rebuild an electric clock.) For the vast majority of people, a drill or a computer or a car or a clock are all necessary but mysterious tools. They understand nothing of how those tools work and have no interest in understanding. They turn it on, cross their fingers, hope it does what they need, then turn it off and forget about it as soon as possible. Actually, cars and computers might be easier to fix than clocks and drills, if only because there's so much documentation readily available, and the parts are easier to find.

There's a very good chance that Gordon Shumway can hunt down the cause of his problem, if he wants to take the time, without needing to be a computer programmer. Most computer problems are either explained in help files (which no one bothers to read) or are answered somewhere online by someone else who's already solved the problem.

[Gordon Shumway]

Fantastic! That solved the problem.

Thanks, friend.

[Gordon Shumway]

Thanks to all. I did the reset that Oren suggested and Firefox is working correctly again.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Actually you can do it either by resetting or reinstalling FF. I use Seamonkey and that's what I do when something goes wrong. Delete it and reinstall it, everything does not get lost doing this.

[Mayayana]

| Actually you can do it either by resetting or reinstalling FF. | I use Seamonkey and that's what I do when something goes wrong. | Delete it and reinstall it, everything does not get lost doing | this.

The two methods are a little different. All of the personal settings are stored in your FF profile folder. Unless you specifically remove those, a reinstall will not affect anything there. A "reset" will leave personal files in the profile folder, like bookmarks, while replacing settings files like prefs.js with defaults.

Unfortunately, a reset is only really useful for people who never actually deal with FF settings in the first place. It's like doing a factory restore of Windows -- works great for people who only use their computer as a gmail terminal, but it's a big hassle for anyone who really uses their computer.

For those of us who take the time to configure FF, replacing all of those carefully chosen settings with defaults would take an hour to fix. :)

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Like I said Seamonkey does not lose anything when reinstalled. I think SM is FF and Thunderbird combination. Some times I have to use IE because some applications IE is required. For example when I use weblink to flash car remote starter blades from iDATAlink, I have to use IE to log in. Also I use Safari on iOS stuffs.

[Gordon Shumway]

Not sure when it came out, but I checked yesterday and updated to 35 before I posted just to make sure the previous version wasn't the problem.

[Gordon Shumway]

Your time estimate was about right.