Geocaching.com website problem

January 28, 2010

Thanks fizzymagic. I followed your link and the frustrating problems with IE 8 did not reappear. With fingers crossed, I can now navigate thru the GC site. :rolleyes:

Update 2/29 Ugh! The fix only lasted one day, same error messages today again. <_<

Edited January 29, 2010 by Wild Bill and Jabber

19k · January 28, 2010

I checked the error message when the search result page did not display.
It said HTML Parsing Error-Unable to modify the parent container element before the child element is closed (KB927917)

Doesn't mean anything to me but maybe the powers to be can fix this issue.

Yup! That is exactly the error that I was getting and that I fixed by removing CoolIris.

I see that you couldn't be bothered to follow the link I posted in #78 which led to a detailed explanation of this problem. If you had, then you would understand why plug-ins can trigger it and that the problem does not lie with the add-ons but with the architecture of IE.

I'm super happy that you found that removing an add-on stopped the problem with the geocaching.com pages for you. However, your assumption that the problem is a result of a bad add-on, and that there is nothing wrong with the site, is incorrect.

Hey, I don't think I did anything to deserve a snarkey reply from you, Fizzymagic. It was not appreciated.

PS: The link you gave really doesn't explain a thing. It suggests using IE7 or IE7 compatibility mode.

Edited January 28, 2010 by knowschad

19k · January 28, 2010

OK, despite Fizzy's sarcasm, I did try his advice. I re-installed CoolIris (the most recent version) and then confirmed that it still caused the old issue, which it did. I then added geocaching.com to the Tools/Compatibility View Settings list (simply using the defaults) and without doing anything more, the remainder of the cache list page appeared.

However, I still will be removing CoolIris again because it also causes other issues with IE8.

19k · January 28, 2010

IE7 compatibility mode has only reduced the frequency of the issue for me (unless I'm doing something wrong). I still have CoolIris installed and enabled, but am running www.geocaching.com in compatibility mode. Just hit the error again when listing somebody's caches:

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648)

Timestamp: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:03:31 UTC

Message: HTML Parsing Error: Unable to modify the parent container element before the child element is closed (KB927917)

Line: 0

Char: 0

Code: 0

January 28, 2010

The computers I use at work that I am experiencing these problems with are running IE6, and as I stated before I am using IE7 at home. Having the problem at both locations.
Have you got CoolIris installed?
Incidentally, I suspected CoolIris because sometimes I'd visit other sites and have the tabs totally freeze up on me. Today I noticed the Error icon in the status bar & checked the details. It wasn't the same error, but this time it directly implicated CoolIris. So I disabled it and that page opened just fine for me. Then I went back out of curiousity and checked the Geocaching pages that had given me trouble before, and >BINGO!< no more problem.

Dude I havn't a clue what CoolIris is.

19k · January 28, 2010

The computers I use at work that I am experiencing these problems with are running IE6, and as I stated before I am using IE7 at home. Having the problem at both locations.
Have you got CoolIris installed?
Incidentally, I suspected CoolIris because sometimes I'd visit other sites and have the tabs totally freeze up on me. Today I noticed the Error icon in the status bar & checked the details. It wasn't the same error, but this time it directly implicated CoolIris. So I disabled it and that page opened just fine for me. Then I went back out of curiousity and checked the Geocaching pages that had given me trouble before, and >BINGO!< no more problem.

Dude I havn't a clue what CoolIris is.

Got a search engine that you prefer? I like Google, myself.

CoolIris

2.2k · January 28, 2010

This is a fairly common problem with Google Analytics and IE8 (I found after some googling)... I noticed that the script that is causing the problem is near the bottom of the page. Almost all of the forum posts I read indicated that moving the script into the <HEAD> fixed the problem. A lot of people have experienced sporatic problems in IE8 when the script is located in the body.

I have not been having the problem personally, but apparently clearing the cache is suppose to provide some temporary relief from the problem (don't quote me on this, because I haven't been able to actually make the problem happen)..

Something to try at least Groundspeak

January 29, 2010

The computers I use at work that I am experiencing these problems with are running IE6, and as I stated before I am using IE7 at home. Having the problem at both locations.
Have you got CoolIris installed?
Incidentally, I suspected CoolIris because sometimes I'd visit other sites and have the tabs totally freeze up on me. Today I noticed the Error icon in the status bar & checked the details. It wasn't the same error, but this time it directly implicated CoolIris. So I disabled it and that page opened just fine for me. Then I went back out of curiousity and checked the Geocaching pages that had given me trouble before, and >BINGO!< no more problem.

Dude I havn't a clue what CoolIris is.

Got a search engine that you prefer? I like Google, myself.

CoolIris

Thanks for your sarcastic comment. I bet you make all kinds of friends that way.

January 29, 2010

Disclaimer: My knowledge of Cooliris is quite limited.

Cooliris is a free plugin for web browsers that is used to display photos or video in an enhanced way. Users may have received photos or a link from someone that required Cooliris, and that may have led the users to install the plugin. The plugin may have been encountered and installed in other ways as well.

Interested persons posting their browser name and version number might find that a helpful person will respond and explain how to see if Cooliris is on their system and how to disable or delete it.

January 30, 2010

I looked in my IE7 add-on list for CoolIris and did not see it. I also did a search on my computer for CoolIris and came up with nothing. So, appartently CooIris is ot the issue at all

January 31, 2010

Some who know me, know I do not post much in the forums, but when I do, I usually do for good reason. I am one of those Lurkers, that gets 99.99 percent of what I want to know from other posts. Well, I speak up now because I am going to broach a new subject to the thread here, and suggest that perhaps, it is not all IE, it is not all Geocaching.com, it is not all about Javascript, plugins or the thousands of different programs that are installed in the geocaching community user base.

Here is my story:

As I wake up most Saturday mornings, when I am clear to go geocaching or do the things I love to do, one of those things I do, is also what I do for a living. I am a Network Specialist by trade and also dabble in networking, computing and security at home. I am not a programmer, but I can read perl and shell scripts, have dealt with a lot of open source code compiling, but that is not why I am speaking today. Some of my other attributes are curiosity and am a detailed systematic troubleshooter.

I have read the threads, and there is a lot of experience here in the threads suggesting and have most likely identified some the short comings of several software issues. I was finding that I was suffering the same issues, and appeared to be cronic. As most of what I was experiencing was the same frustration others have suffered. So, I decided it was time for me to put my full attention on the issue to see if I could nail down the behaviors and isolate them.

One thing that is suggested is clearing cache, disabling plugs, everything that was suggest in the thead. One thing that perhaps some of you Techies know out there is the concepts of content caching, proxies, combinations of the two, and also caching infrastructures that are interecption transparent caching proxies.

One of the methods I use for my home network to help speed up the experience of the Inernet is to use a caching proxy. The one I use is configured in a simplistic manor to just speed up the content by caching it from my standard DSL line speed of 1250 kb/s and stored on my Gateway server.

I noting again this morning it appears that as usual, I was getting the errors. So I said ok, step 1 clear the browse cache. Done.

Hmm, Interesting, the problem seemed to get worse. I was still getting the script error and now on the GC.com homepage. Ok, it was time to comb the browser settings. I keep the browser almost default, and I do not have any plugins except the standard ones. I do not have any third party toolbars, except Norton.

Setup:

XP Pro, SP3 fully patched

IE8 fully patched

Norton 2010

I am setup for TAB mode, and most other default settings baring a few in the advanced section do disable script errors and turn on http 1.1 proxy aware settings. All Security settings are standard and default. Compatibility mode is not being used for any sites.

The next step was to check and shift the behavior on startup when the brower will check the freshness of webpages. There are 4 distinct settings. The default is "Every Time I start Internet Explorer" Through experience with testing hundreds of application at work through our Enterprise caching systems, if you want to override browser cache you can shift the setting to "Every time I visit the webpage"

OK, Hmm, this didn't seem to help, well, the next step a seasoned Specialist would do is go look at the caching proxies in the Enerprise. Well, my little Enterprise at home has this caching proxy to speed up the experience remember? Well, when it has run for 187 days, like my Gateway's current up time, and has been a while since I recompiled with newer source code, the little lite came on. I just simply reconfigured the browser to no longer go through the proxy.

Bingo! I was able to view pocket query results and no longer got this error:

Message: HTML Parsing Error: Unable to modify the parent container element before the child element is closed (KB927917)

I got the done in the lower left corner without the caution sign indicating a script error had occured. Completed without errors, and all caches displayed, no errors anywhere! I surfed through GC.com, and could no longer duplicate the error! So now remember, I bypassed my proxy and had set the browser to force load every visit.

When you have a proxy set, under the overs, and in the proxy logs, you can see when a browser gets a page, and subsiquent pages in terms of hits and misses. The key here, is when the proxy settings are set, and the browser is set to force load, the page request, is suppose to tell the proxy server that it does not want the objects in the cache, but go get them again, and deliver to the client who asked for it. Well, I just proved that something in the proxy cache Must be corrupted.

First and formost, I went back to the proxy, and restarted it. I can tell you one of the best proxies out there is Squid-cache Proxy. Yes, this is what I use. If you ever get a chance to go do some highly techincal reading on their website, you can grow to understand why I am bringing this up in this post. I then set the IE8 to Automatically, and re-enabled the proxy settings.

I am now going to suggest that some ISP's have Intercepting Transparent Proxies. In doing so, they cache content as objects. These are used to accelerate content as I described above, as well as cache content to save bandwidth at the edge. Also cachers indicated they see these same issues at their places of work. The other reasons why these caching proxies are used, is for security reasons. Being behind a proxy, can hide IP's and will not allow initiated reverse inbound traffic. This can typically be placed at the borders or edges of their networks. So when you hit GC.com, your session is initiated from inside the ISP, passes through the edge, and must do that to get to GC.com. So when I was being proxied the same thing happens here at home. I am very sure that what could be happening is, Geocachers going through proxies that are not well maintained or configured properly can and will affect how GC.com is viewed.

If the objects that are cached are corrupted, as in my case, you can an will be affected. To troubleshoot this further with others, can become difficult, because how many people open a trouble ticket with their ISP's and ask if there could be a caching proxy problem in their network? So when GC.com upgraded the site, it changed the objects that would get cached. If the cache does not age out properly or gets corrupted, you will get random results. As complex of an issue this can get, you can write web pages so they are not suppose to be cached, and you may or may not see this in the source viewed in the browser. I am assuming GC.com developers allow their pages, icons and headers to be cached. Sophisticated Proxies can be configured to ignore directives and alter content as well.

As fizzymagic indicated it is a complex issue, but now has a lot more variables than you preveously thought. The 4 different settings for the Temporary Internet file handling can be suttle. For all I know, there could be an issue with how IE8 interacts with proxies based on how these settings are set. I also know for a fact, as fizzymagic and others have suggested is that, FireFox is a better brower than IE8. I grew up with Mosaic 1.1 and have used a multiude of browsers in my day. Open source browers that are well maintained are better because they conform better to open standards than 800 lb Gorilla's like MS. In fact, MS has been well known for the tripple E concept. Embrase, Encompass, Extinguish.

They think the way they do things is better than anyone else, but I have many times proven them wrong, as other Techies have here by using open source products that are much better. This is why fizzymagic kept insisting to use another browser. Why do you think they got into trouble a few years back by locking out everybody else. The law forced MS to open their system, and now today, there are several open source browsers that just work better. They play better in the Internet and proxy infrastructures.

It maybe the case here that if you ever wanted to install another brower so you can play your favorite game geocaching and for no other reason than that, I would after reading this post install FireFox in an instant. In Terms of security, I think you will find there are a lot fewer exploits in the Firefox browser, and they really do an excellent job with security patches. Open source communities have proven time and again, Open means wider developer base, better source code viewing, troubleshooting and wider testing before released. Yeah, I know this argument is hard to defend as you say 75% of the computers are microsoft, but that is just statistics game, assuming that all those users just stay with IE. Well, I don't know if you could really get an accurate scensis of who installs and used FireFox.

Well, I will stop here now, and make a recommendation to do a couple of tests to see if they have any impact with IE8, or any IE version that is currently having this crinic problem from what appers to be a minority here. Currently, IE8 is working fine for me now.

Select Tools > General>Browser History Section>settings>Every time I visit the webpage or Automatically.

Advanced section > Use http 1.1 and Use http 1.1 though proxy connections.

Play with a combination of these settings to see if it makes a difference. If it doesn't, then I do no have anthing else to offer. But this certainly will spark another burst of posts in the thread as I am sure my methodolgy in testing this proves there could be a "Man in the Middle" messing with you. Sorry for any spelling errors. I free handed the post without running it through a spell checker. Have a Great day! Happy Caching! MR

19k · January 31, 2010

The computers I use at work that I am experiencing these problems with are running IE6, and as I stated before I am using IE7 at home. Having the problem at both locations.
Have you got CoolIris installed?
Incidentally, I suspected CoolIris because sometimes I'd visit other sites and have the tabs totally freeze up on me. Today I noticed the Error icon in the status bar & checked the details. It wasn't the same error, but this time it directly implicated CoolIris. So I disabled it and that page opened just fine for me. Then I went back out of curiousity and checked the Geocaching pages that had given me trouble before, and >BINGO!< no more problem.

Dude I havn't a clue what CoolIris is.

Got a search engine that you prefer? I like Google, myself.
CoolIris

Thanks for your sarcastic comment. I bet you make all kinds of friends that way.

I'm sorry, yes, that was a bit sarcastic, and unneccessarily so. On the other hand, I took your "Dude, I haven't a clue" comment to be rather sarcastic as well. You were sitting right there at the computer as you wrote that. You could just have easily done a Google search and clued yourself in instead of asking me to explain it for you.

Edited to clarify that I took your comment to be rather sarcastic, but I can see now that it may have not been intended to be that way.

Edited February 1, 2010 by knowschad

February 1, 2010

This is just an FYI for that person at Groundspeak who felt that what was MINE should be YOURS. I’m sure they will want to know of their oversight.

That special once-every-seven-days pocket query is still MINE not YOURS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My Finds Last Generated (PST)

You can receive a Pocket Query containing a list of all the caches you have found, along with your log entries. Running this query will add it to the current queue for the day.

* The Pocket Query can only run once every 7 days.

Email Subject: [GEO] Pocket Query: My Finds Pocket Query‏

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What was MINE is now YOURS and what was YOURS is still YOURS. But, for the moment at least, this is still MINE and not YOURS. Ha, ha!

February 2, 2010

Phase 2 troubleshooting, We are not done yet...:

To continue the process, we need to back up a little. There are three distinct parts that make up the total picture of the architecture end to end. This is the browser, the Network, the portal/database.

Being a member of Geocaching.com for 5 years now, I have seen it grow in size and features. What I want to talk about now is the backend. Frankly, I am pretty impressed by how Groundspeak has evolved the features.

Lets talk briefly about the architecture, the way I perceive how it is put together. A database that houses this much data and delivers it around the world is coming from a load balanced clustered database with an application (Web) front end. The database is relational in nature and is a Microsoft product, based on all the errors I have seen in the past when the database timed out. My bet they have grown this architecture and is still a windows system.

Then there is the web/app portal bolted on top of the database, and the view given to the world is a single URL. It has been observed on slow rotation, at least at night when I do my tests, andappears to be variable from my perspective.

Now in terms of premium features, I want to focus on the 4 main content delivery features. The "My Finds Pocket query", "Standard pocket Queries", the "pocket query search results" delivered in the browser, and finally the general surfing of the www.geocaching.com website.

For a networking application content delivery guy to understand where things can break it is just as important to understand the capabilities of the backend and the client front end.

The scenario: Firefox browser works fine pulling data but IE seems to randomly choke. I am talking in the confines of IE8 as I no longer use IE6 or IE7.

During my testing and troubleshooting yesterday, I discovered there was a bit of tuning in the browser and my proxy services to solve the larger problem of having a broad spectrum of viewing and flush out what I am going to call cache mishandling issues.

Lets get back to the features for a moment. When accessing a database, there are certain query methods and architectural layouts that can be very costly when you are asking for large amounts of data and how the database is optimized and indexed for the most common query types.

If you look at the how we Geocache and the nature of how GPS systems work, the data is viewed in concentric circles. If I simply browse to my profile page and click on the "Search for nearest geocaches from your home coordinates", the algorithm used is a center with a radius. To me this would be a very common index search and I notably see the error here too. If you look a the number of records it reports as returned, I get 8771 caches with 439 pages. To me, I have to ask why this limit, and not a smaller one or an even larger one? It’s ok, let’s move on.

Now, a pocket query results from a standard pocket query with all the defaults basically uses the same algorithm with no filters, except the distance one. This certainly defines the size of the query up to the limit of 500 caches.

Now this is is where Groundspeak probably saw the first performance issues, and is why it is a premium service, if we had the entire user base doing this, I am sure it would kill the database. This is why they have dedicated database servers, and application servers, querying for the pocket query generation, and the My Finds PG. They can then process the data in a slower fashion and send it via e-mail. Doing the query on the fly and delivering it to the browser is very costly, and a My Finds Query my bet would always timeout.

So the more complicated pocket queries take longer to run than a well tuned "not so greedy" pocket query. This is now where I am focusing efforts to nail down where the problem is by deduction.

Example:

The FTF pocket query. I have a PQ setup so I can get an instant view using a browser or Blackberry while traveling. looking and thinking about the cost to the database, it is a lot more intensive of a DB query then a simple nearest query.

Here are the criteria: 500, any type, any container, that = have not been found, My home coordinates, 200 Mile radius. When I hit the viewing search results link, it takes a real long time relative to a simple home query like this:

Criteria: 500, any type, any container, that = none, My Home coordinates, 100 Mile radius. This one returns data quickly. So now, back to the much slower query, visualize the breadth and depth of this query. The database must rip through thousands and thousands of caches to get the response, and I was real greedy, asking for a 200 mile radius.

Supporting observation to the scenario. The FTF pocket query view search result appears to be the only one that fails most consistently. All other small simple queries seem to be of sufficient speed and display without errors. Further testing last night and this morning suggest this to be a contributing piece to the whole picture. Or is it?

Now the observation of the Fire Fox browser to "Never fail" to me indicates a timing issue. This is where my comment in my first post indicating Fire Fox "plays better" is because the browser stack is less sensitive to long wait periods for data response, and I am now suggesting MS Brower stack, is timing sensitive, hence the weird error to me "gut feeling" is the crux of the issue.

With ISP issues, network slowness, O/S IP stack tuning are all the things under the covers that when added all up, equals complexity. I am going to say now that my proxy is no longer the issue here, because I can get the costly pocket query to fail with or without it. My proxy server is extremely forgiving. I deliberately have it configured to wait up to 5 minutes to accept data from a relayed query. I now, based on putting these facts together, comparing browser character results, am pointing my finger directly to MS and their browser. Or is t?

So the next steps are to get some Wire Shark traces to see if they translate to errors. My bet if the MS browser is doing the timeout it should show this timeout behavior, or send a reset or FIN unexpectedly back to the web site.

Is everyone asleep yet?

Stay tuned! I have trace data! MR

February 2, 2010

Killing the second post, as there was a fatal php error, and just hit the back button and reset the reply. When I want back to the thread to my surprise. You can actually delete this for continuity sake. MR

Edited February 2, 2010 by MartianRabbit

February 2, 2010

Phase 3 - Troubleshooting, we are almost there!

After the last few days of troubleshooting, I have consistent results on when the error happens. But first, I want to share a few other small tests I did that were suggested to the OP.

I turned off all plugins, but this does not help. Going directly to GC.com during all my tests didn't pose a significant threat, so I was ok doing this for the tests. Everything is back on now.

One of the cool things watching the wire is when you are at that level, you can see a lot of common things, and interestingly enough, there are some very common things both Fire Fox and MS IE8 do the same on the wire.

So last night for about 6 hours, and about an hour this morning, I ran at least 100 individual traces to get a consistent view of the front end of GC.com, and used the same methodology for each test to keep consistent.

The browser is set to go direct and not go through my proxy.

The browser history setting is set to "Every time I start Internet Explorer"

All other Security settings are Standard.

I created a shortcut for the FTF PQ as mentioned in Phase 2.

In each case, Wire Shark is started first, then I launch the shortcut. Once completed normally or get the error, the Browser is closed. Then the trace is stopped. Then I find the SYN, SYN ACK, ACK, which is the 3 way handshake. I then in the output view, select the SYN packet (start) and then tell Wire Shark to analyze > Follow TCP Stream.

A Filter then is applied to just that conversation and all other conversations are filtered out. This then shows packet by packet how the broswer interacts with the Webservers on the front end. There are 6 active webservers on the front end and you can see them rotate. It took a couple hours to see them all come around active ,and get the traces from each and how they responed a couple rotations. It was easy enough to find their IP addresses and hostnames by using nslookup and guessing.

So I did enough traces for each browser to get a consistent picture on when the failure occurs. When you look at the traces, lets talk first about what is common to each browser first, then I will demonstrate what I think is happening.

After the initial connection there are several packets sent bulding out the frames and boarders then the content is filled in and then the completion of the page load then the TCP session closes properly or stops with an ACK.

Illistrated in the first gif, you will see there are data loss and retransmissions. Not sure what is causing this but is a consistent transmission (in flight issue or possibly interface tuning issues at the web server end) handled just fine by each broswer. It then reassebles just fine.

Then finally, you see the completion, a nice clean, (FIN, FIN ACK , ACK) the closer. Each browser looks great and the page loads in the brower, looks perfect, get the Done in the lower left corner.

So now we zoom in on the problem. When the IE browser breaks, with the error, there are this excessive amount of http status 304 codes returned form the Groundspeak servers, which is only exibited by the IE Agent type, browser. none of the traces I did with Fire Fox even have one of these http codes sent, that I can recall. I can do more but it appears that FireFox is handling the intrasmission get just fine.

When the browser just gets one or two of these, it handles the error just ok, there are random script errors, but renders the page. Once you see 4-5 or more, the broswer stalls and you don't get the caches, and the infamous script error is thrown. So now look at the output from From Wire Shark.

The sessions are terminated with a reset from Groundspeak and you can see the (RST,ACK). This is bad.

In ALL cases, there is a Reset, with an excessive amount for http response codes of 304's. Definition:

10.3.5 304 Not Modified
If the client has performed a conditional GET request and access is allowed, but the document has not been modified, the server SHOULD respond with this status code. The 304 response MUST NOT contain a message-body, and thus is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields.

The response MUST include the following header fields:

- Date, unless its omission is required by section 14.18.1

If a clockless origin server obeys these rules, and proxies and clients add their own Date to any response received without one (as already specified by [RFC 2068], section 14.19), caches will operate correctly.

- ETag and/or Content-Location, if the header would have been sent

in a 200 response to the same request

- Expires, Cache-Control, and/or Vary, if the field-value might

differ from that sent in any previous response for the same

variant

If the conditional GET used a strong cache validator (see section 13.3.3), the response SHOULD NOT include other entity-headers. Otherwise (i.e., the conditional GET used a weak validator), the response MUST NOT include other entity-headers; this prevents inconsistencies between cached entity-bodies and updated headers.

If a 304 response indicates an entity not currently cached, then the cache MUST disregard the response and repeat the request without the conditional.

If a cache uses a received 304 response to update a cache entry, the cache MUST update the entry to reflect any new field values given in the response

So now we know what happens, Now Groundspeak has something to go on. Also included I will show just the bottom of the Stream content. I now also turn to the other Techies out there, to reproduce my methodology, and perhaps, The Moderators can Direct Groundspeak supprot folks to take a look. I have all the trace files and can e-mail them to whom ever is interested.

Have a Great day, and Happy Caching! MR

:Stream Content:

GET /css/yui27-reset-fonts.css HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?pq=92320141-bf91-4fcc-9ea2-bfbf180de8f8

Accept-Language: en-us

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

If-Modified-Since: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:06:01 GMT; length=1274

Host: www.geocaching.com

Connection: Keep-Alive

Cookie: __utma=54847549.1301644696.1237738236.1265041117.1265059992.302; __utmz=54847549.1264398161.236.12.utmcsr=geowoodstock.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/; __qca=1237738237-3681451-73014006; __utmc=54847549; __utmb=54847549.1.10.1265059992; userid=38a657aa-bbd1-4984-889f-f5894f390c7d; ASP.NET_SessionId=oftrkvzupd3yy155d1fqno45



HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified

Last-Modified: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:05:59 GMT

Accept-Ranges: bytes

ETag: "80bda8c06595ca1:0"

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:34:32 GMT



GET /css/geocachingMainPrint.css HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?pq=92320141-bf91-4fcc-9ea2-bfbf180de8f8

Accept-Language: en-us

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

If-Modified-Since: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:59:04 GMT; length=18168

Host: www.geocaching.com

Connection: Keep-Alive

Cookie: __utma=54847549.1301644696.1237738236.1265041117.1265059992.302; __utmz=54847549.1264398161.236.12.utmcsr=geowoodstock.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/; __qca=1237738237-3681451-73014006; __utmc=54847549; __utmb=54847549.1.10.1265059992; userid=38a657aa-bbd1-4984-889f-f5894f390c7d; ASP.NET_SessionId=oftrkvzupd3yy155d1fqno45



HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified

Last-Modified: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:59:02 GMT

Accept-Ranges: bytes

ETag: "0b71a153199ca1:0"

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:34:33 GMT



GET /js/googlemapjs.ashx HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?pq=92320141-bf91-4fcc-9ea2-bfbf180de8f8

Accept-Language: en-us

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

Host: www.geocaching.com

Connection: Keep-Alive

Cookie: __utma=54847549.1301644696.1237738236.1265041117.1265059992.302; __utmz=54847549.1264398161.236.12.utmcsr=geowoodstock.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/; __qca=1237738237-3681451-73014006; __utmc=54847549; __utmb=54847549.1.10.1265059992; userid=38a657aa-bbd1-4984-889f-f5894f390c7d; ASP.NET_SessionId=oftrkvzupd3yy155d1fqno45



HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Cache-Control: private

Content-Type: application/x-javascript; charset=utf-8

Content-Encoding: gzip

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:34:33 GMT

Content-Length: 1687



.............`.I.%&/m.{.J.J..t...`.$..@.........iG#).*..eVe]f.@......{....{....;.N'...?\fd.l..J...!....?~|.?"~.$.<.y...^..Yu...?.......w._.o.'l.~..._r.o.K~...]....(./..{......<xel...W..-...._7..l....yV6..._.....{..U.....,....O.....W.W..uv..........j.z....~...O.....|q.....~............w.f........?.S._N....g_.`.~w}v.......>n.....{.......=..O......~..?xvZ]g..'.g...A.........V..........|..}.<..k...-..bw#r.O.~Qu...'....{...<|..7......e9...^....]}...g...OO.S|q...?.Z|..."..6t..r.~.v...O|z~~..?=.f_^...........~v.$...../^...........w..^..|.ym.lj&.F.^_.{....O..|....z>.'g./.....w....._..^......w..|.........w..do~...nUM..*.7"......}..;.W..O._....V._]_.........|r.............{?;......Yv~.u.[."..F...'.y.b.....O~.{/........N_O.w...O..&..g.]<}.~....~z=....Y.._["..,....*'?.}....d{.l............;.~b9.s09;y}.........k.N........}...\.71M........}....].M...{O.'......^..........^=<..=.n.g....b....._.S.]..?..................i.V......j...._..7..|U\5{.....o~..>...~..|..o..~..W...O..../../..^W.9~.zz6}yo....@4.N.../).$}......i~..wv?....<..;.;..w?q..'.~.....^..._..'_}........./....;....YM.zE.....D...w..{..w~.................{.O.\...|....?...f.......O.....O..?.M.Z..E~.....x........x.lv._......o.|..'......._.v..~j....?x...n?=k..'.q......h.z
...@^..cJ.}..9...r
...F..O...z.~<o....wI.6...;.V..
..O..M*b.k..A.....>.j3....2..U...U.,...Y5]/.e;...._/.E>n.........hS.2k...,......w?.sg.V....>..|......g.cD,v...g~.Cs\...v..vn.!.`..O.../....s+.. Y....C......?k4..X.>[L.<k..2._[.K..o.Ti6n.)&`@8...q^..g..............g......4.O...a..#...c..&Y.j.W9.j.w.....3........V.c6.a.x..J.............<.}|.{;..g.U.....r.%.l"./a]....;.._..l1..rB./P..g...+.C~.!..=..'.....x.C......nP......U....Y..e.K...7pN\.F.o.....c......GET /images/icons/compass/E.gif HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?pq=92320141-bf91-4fcc-9ea2-bfbf180de8f8

Accept-Language: en-us

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

If-Modified-Since: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT; length=150

Host: www.geocaching.com

Connection: Keep-Alive

Cookie: __utma=54847549.1301644696.1237738236.1265041117.1265059992.302; __utmz=54847549.1264398161.236.12.utmcsr=geowoodstock.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/; __qca=1237738237-3681451-73014006; __utmc=54847549; __utmb=54847549.1.10.1265059992; userid=38a657aa-bbd1-4984-889f-f5894f390c7d; ASP.NET_SessionId=oftrkvzupd3yy155d1fqno45



HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified

Last-Modified: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT

Accept-Ranges: bytes

ETag: "8081eae145a4c81:0"

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:34:34 GMT



GET /images/icons/container/other.gif HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?pq=92320141-bf91-4fcc-9ea2-bfbf180de8f8

Accept-Language: en-us

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

If-Modified-Since: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT; length=153

Host: www.geocaching.com

Connection: Keep-Alive

Cookie: __utma=54847549.1301644696.1237738236.1265041117.1265059992.302; __utmz=54847549.1264398161.236.12.utmcsr=geowoodstock.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/; __qca=1237738237-3681451-73014006; __utmc=54847549; __utmb=54847549.1.10.1265059992; userid=38a657aa-bbd1-4984-889f-f5894f390c7d; ASP.NET_SessionId=oftrkvzupd3yy155d1fqno45



HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified

Last-Modified: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT

Accept-Ranges: bytes

ETag: "8081eae145a4c81:0"

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:34:34 GMT



GET /images/icons/container/micro.gif HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?pq=92320141-bf91-4fcc-9ea2-bfbf180de8f8

Accept-Language: en-us

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

If-Modified-Since: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT; length=146

Host: www.geocaching.com

Connection: Keep-Alive

Cookie: __utma=54847549.1301644696.1237738236.1265041117.1265059992.302; __utmz=54847549.1264398161.236.12.utmcsr=geowoodstock.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/; __qca=1237738237-3681451-73014006; __utmc=54847549; __utmb=54847549.1.10.1265059992; userid=38a657aa-bbd1-4984-889f-f5894f390c7d; ASP.NET_SessionId=oftrkvzupd3yy155d1fqno45



HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified

Last-Modified: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT

Accept-Ranges: bytes

ETag: "8081eae145a4c81:0"

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:34:34 GMT



GET /images/WptTypes/6.gif HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?pq=92320141-bf91-4fcc-9ea2-bfbf180de8f8

Accept-Language: en-us

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

If-Modified-Since: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT; length=795

Host: www.geocaching.com

Connection: Keep-Alive

Cookie: __utma=54847549.1301644696.1237738236.1265041117.1265059992.302; __utmz=54847549.1264398161.236.12.utmcsr=geowoodstock.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/; __qca=1237738237-3681451-73014006; __utmc=54847549; __utmb=54847549.1.10.1265059992; userid=38a657aa-bbd1-4984-889f-f5894f390c7d; ASP.NET_SessionId=oftrkvzupd3yy155d1fqno45



HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified

Last-Modified: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT

Accept-Ranges: bytes

ETag: "8081eae145a4c81:0"

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:34:35 GMT



GET /images/WptTypes/8.gif HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?pq=92320141-bf91-4fcc-9ea2-bfbf180de8f8

Accept-Language: en-us

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

If-Modified-Since: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT; length=1105

Host: www.geocaching.com

Connection: Keep-Alive

Cookie: __utma=54847549.1301644696.1237738236.1265041117.1265059992.302; __utmz=54847549.1264398161.236.12.utmcsr=geowoodstock.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/; __qca=1237738237-3681451-73014006; __utmc=54847549; __utmb=54847549.1.10.1265059992; userid=38a657aa-bbd1-4984-889f-f5894f390c7d; ASP.NET_SessionId=oftrkvzupd3yy155d1fqno45



HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified

Last-Modified: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT

Accept-Ranges: bytes

ETag: "8081eae145a4c81:0"

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:34:35 GMT



GET /images/wpttypes/21.gif HTTP/1.1

Accept: */*

Referer: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?pq=92320141-bf91-4fcc-9ea2-bfbf180de8f8

Accept-Language: en-us

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)

Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate

If-Modified-Since: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT; length=283

Host: www.geocaching.com

Connection: Keep-Alive

Cookie: __utma=54847549.1301644696.1237738236.1265041117.1265059992.302; __utmz=54847549.1264398161.236.12.utmcsr=geowoodstock.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/; __qca=1237738237-3681451-73014006; __utmc=54847549; __utmb=54847549.1.10.1265059992; userid=38a657aa-bbd1-4984-889f-f5894f390c7d; ASP.NET_SessionId=oftrkvzupd3yy155d1fqno45



HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified

Last-Modified: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:55:43 GMT

Accept-Ranges: bytes

ETag: "8081eae145a4c81:0"

Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.0

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

Date: Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:34:36 GMT

February 2, 2010

Could someone check the "photo links" which can be found at the bottom of cache logs which have photos attached. The following error is displayed when I try to view photos using that link.

IE v8.0.7600.16385

Windows 7 Home Premium.

-----

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR

3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0)

Timestamp: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 11:08:58 UTC

Message: 'Builder' is undefined

Line: 219

Char: 770

Code: 0

URI: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...bd-f65625d392fc

-----

Also, when I surf to a cache page from within my profile logs, I get the following error.

----

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR

3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0)

Timestamp: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 11:11:37 UTC

Message: 'null' is null or not an object

Line: 219

Char: 2891

Code: 0

URI: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...=y&decrypt=

19k · February 2, 2010

Could someone check the "photo links" which can be found at the bottom of cache logs which have photos attached. The following error is displayed when I try to view photos using that link.
IE v8.0.7600.16385

Windows 7 Home Premium.

-----

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR

3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0)

Timestamp: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 11:08:58 UTC

Message: 'Builder' is undefined

Line: 219

Char: 770

Code: 0

URI: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...bd-f65625d392fc

-----

Also, when I surf to a cache page from within my profile logs, I get the following error.

----

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR

3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0)

Timestamp: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 11:11:37 UTC

Message: 'null' is null or not an object

Line: 219

Char: 2891

Code: 0

URI: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...=y&decrypt=

Ian, that is a different issue than the one being discussed here. I'd suggest that you post to this thread where it may get better visibility: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...9990&st=350

That said, I can't duplicate your issues, for what its worth.

5.3k · February 2, 2010

... long analysis with Wireshark capture ...

Good job, MR, at looking at the wire.

I'm not sure the 304s are the problem. The ones you are showing are responses to requests for the various icons on the page; IE should be caching those better and not asking for them every time the page is loaded. Maybe you have the caching turned off somehow?

The freezing-up problem, as I understand it, is with javascript trying to modify a DOM element on the page before the DOM is finished loading. But I don't see any evidence of that in the traffic you posted; all I see is IE asking for a bunch of stuff it should have in its cache and getting told that the item should still be in its cache.

I suspect there could be some kind of AJAX-cache interaction issue going on with IE. I found this which might be relevant. Also this.

Here's something to try: clear the cache and reload the page several times. My guess is that immediately after clearing the cache, you never see the 304 responses and that IE8 will not lock up. Maybe you can disable the cache completely and the problem will disappear!

I think it's pretty clear that this issue is an interaction between the AJAX used in the new site design and IE8. Since it only happens to a minority of users, it may be very difficult for the Groundspeak people to debug.

February 4, 2010

I'm not sure the 304s are the problem. The ones you are showing are responses to requests for the various icons on the page; IE should be caching those better and not asking for them every time the page is loaded. Maybe you have the caching turned off somehow?

Hi fizzymagic, that for the feedback! For a minute there, I thought I put the community into a coma. The way I have the browser setup is this, and the default is automatic, so I am out of standard on this one. To turn it off, it would be to set to for "everytime I visit the webpage", and that didn't help I recall.

And the advanced settings are like this:

I agree the servers respond telling the browser to look in cache for them as they have not changed, is evident in the stream output. My concern is the behavior suggests that when there are an excessive amount returned, somehow the Server side response ultimately terminates the session as you can see with the [RST, ACK](very consistent). To me, if the cache failed to get and display them it would still render the web page, but only show placeholders for the icons, or just be blank in the places they intended to be that were not delivered.

The other interesting delema is, how does the Server know the content didn't change on the bowesr? This suggest to me the server remembers me somehow being there before. That is a mind bender.

Let me play with this this behavior in the advanced settings "Show Image placeholder", maybe telling the browser to complete the page in spite of the missing images might help. This setting is off by default. In all cases, the content is delivered, but is never fully rendered, as the stream out was very clear to me in this reguard. I can post it if you want to see it. Its lengthy.

Otherwise, I do not turn off the cache, but that is an interesting idea, do you mean do not check for freshness and disable the freshness check? I certainly can set it to Automatic I also do not flush internet Temporary files on exit as illistrated in the advanced settings , so if there is anything associated with stripping on exit, I do not do this, and this is a default setting, to not to.

BTW, with Automatic turned on it didn't help the situation as I recall, is why I changed the setup the way I did, and may have been a left over when I was testing my proxy . What I will/can do is modify the testing criteria and change the settings to see if the behavior persists or if the response is somehow different.

Also another thing I didn't mention is, at night the problem here in Napa CA, is not bad at all and get 80-95% page loads, but during the day in the mid morning , it didn't matter how many times I tried the reload or browser restart, with the F5 or the refresh button, I could almost never get a good load. That to me suggests some kind of resource issue on the back end. Maybe a buffer tuning issue on the stack. Let me read the links you provided to get up todate, with those discussions.

Here's something to try: clear the cache and reload the page several times. My guess is that immediately after clearing the cache, you never see the 304 responses and that IE8 will not lock up. Maybe you can disable the cache completely and the problem will disappear!

Absolutely, let me change the browser settings to attempt to modify the behavior with the place holders and play with the cache settings again. As I recall, I did clear the cache, but not at the frequency of every Browser exit. What I always like to do is come out of the box default first, as most Windows users will be this way if they are lets say, less techinical. It would be cool if we could come up with a configuration setting work around till the problem can be solved at the suspected AJAX-cache interaction. Let me get to it! MR

February 4, 2010

You've seen what just a little extra white space can do!

knowschad, I address this to you, since I did hear you mention the "white space" problem earlier...but anyone else that's got a clue, please chime in. Does anyone have any ideas on this one...............?

So what is up with all the white space on the cache pages? One day I view a page, and everything is nice and compact, and you can actually print the desired information, on one page, if you like. The next time, another day, another time (there's no pattern this), the cache appears with gigantic, useless white space, located between the cache description and the hint. So, can someone please explain why this keeps happening and why it keeps getting fixed and then "UN" fixed.............???

Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned, but I like to print out the cache pages, just for a reference, to take along when I'm going out caching, and NO, I'm not using an "i" anything. I just use a regular old GPS, loaded with the caches in my area.

And just to be clear, yes, I'm using Windows XP Professional and/or Vista (latest editions), on three different computers, with all current updates for everything, along with lE8, Mozilla Foxfire, & Google Chrome, all which are the very latest versions.

I thought that at least, this problem had been corrected, several several days ago. So far as I am concerned, Geocaching.com, has really made a mess with all the website changes. I'm trying so hard to show a few friends a little about the fun and enjoyment of geocaching, but every time we get started, there's another issue with the website, and the "interest factor", dwindles quickly. It's like, "if it's going to be like this, every time, why bother. It's just more trouble than it is enjoyment. Why would anyone want to geocache, and have to put with this kind of frustration, every time?" Unfortunately, I don't really have a good come back for that, because they are right....................GC.com, PLEASE GET THE WEBSITE FIXED !!!

19k · February 4, 2010

You've seen what just a little extra white space can do!

knowschad, I address this to you, since I did hear you mention the "white space" problem earlier...but anyone else that's got a clue, please chime in. Does anyone have any ideas on this one...............?

So what is up with all the white space on the cache pages?

Some of it has been addressed by Groundspeak since the release, but possibily the best solution is here: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=239866

February 4, 2010

Hi fizzymagic,

Ok, read the post at the links provided. I understand now. So my results on the wire is the hard evidence that the IEBrowser does not always read its own cache, so this makes it a MS problem for sure. Without doing a bunch of searching to see if it has been reported to MS, has Groundspeak opened a Deveolpers Bug notice to them?

Anyway, I still thought it to be valuable to make the tests, so did a slough of testing last night, and again this morning, and during the night, the problem based on the the new settings I used I could not reproduce the problem at all, but under the covers still see excessive 304's, with explict [RST,ACK] flying all over the place. It does appear turning on the "Display Image placeholders" does have some effect.

I then made some more tests this moring around 9:00am PST and again, it appears that during the day the frequency of the errors increases dramatically. So it does appear though the Hard error is far less frequent for me when I followed this procedure with these settings.

Tools >> Internet Options >> Browsing History Section >> Settings >> Select Automatic if not already set. My cache on disk appears to be a default of 150MBytes.

Tools >> Internet Options >> Check Image download placeholders

Save the settings.

Re-open the settings, and flush Temporary internet files only, delselect all other flushes, so you don't loose your cookies and password caching.

Now when I surf during the day when the traffic load is up, I got far less errors. So that appears the best I can come up with to help lessen the pain. So if others want to test the settings to see if there is any improvement, and give feedback, would be great! BTW, the one setting does not hurt surfing in general, but allow pages loads to complete more quickly, and you can see the images come in, in random orders filling in. Some take a lot longer, and suspect this behavior is linked to the 304 responses eventually telling the browser to get them from cache.

Interesting enough the linked posts tell the developers to induce more 304's, but seems to trigger an excessive amount and terminates the sesson, where I think the placeholder concept seems to lessen the script error. I noted during my last setup, in the daytime, I couldn't get a Nearest list from the link in my profile, but today, the success was much greater.

Anyway, hope this helps. MR

February 4, 2010

You've seen what just a little extra white space can do!

knowschad, I address this to you, since I did hear you mention the "white space" problem earlier...but anyone else that's got a clue, please chime in. Does anyone have any ideas on this one...............?

So what is up with all the white space on the cache pages?

Some of it has been addressed by Groundspeak since the release, but possibily the best solution is here: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=239866

Well, I'm just not getting much out of that. I thought the "white space" problem had been fixed, at one time. As I said, back during the beginning of the other problem (which I still have, BTW), on several different occasions when I would be able to pull up the caches, the "white space" problem was gone. The "Hints" section, was directly under the cache description. Then the next time I looked, it was messed up again, on all three browsers ? I just don't understand what's going on any more. Why can't GC.com get the website repaired? I'm wondering how long this is going to take............

19k · February 4, 2010

You've seen what just a little extra white space can do!

knowschad, I address this to you, since I did hear you mention the "white space" problem earlier...but anyone else that's got a clue, please chime in. Does anyone have any ideas on this one...............?

So what is up with all the white space on the cache pages?

Some of it has been addressed by Groundspeak since the release, but possibily the best solution is here: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=239866

Well, I'm just not getting much out of that. I thought the "white space" problem had been fixed, at one time. As I said, back during the beginning of the other problem (which I still have, BTW), on several different occasions when I would be able to pull up the caches, the "white space" problem was gone. The "Hints" section, was directly under the cache description. Then the next time I looked, it was messed up again, on all three browsers ? I just don't understand what's going on any more. Why can't GC.com get the website repaired? I'm wondering how long this is going to take............

You are still getting the so-called "lockup" problem, huh? I hadn't checked in a while, but did earlier today, and did not see the issue, so I had assumed they had fixed it somehow.

I don't know what else to say about the whitespace issue except that it has made me pretty much a Firefox convert.

February 4, 2010

You've seen what just a little extra white space can do!

knowschad, I address this to you, since I did hear you mention the "white space" problem earlier...but anyone else that's got a clue, please chime in. Does anyone have any ideas on this one...............?

So what is up with all the white space on the cache pages?

Some of it has been addressed by Groundspeak since the release, but possibily the best solution is here: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=239866

Well, I'm just not getting much out of that. I thought the "white space" problem had been fixed, at one time. As I said, back during the beginning of the other problem (which I still have, BTW), on several different occasions when I would be able to pull up the caches, the "white space" problem was gone. The "Hints" section, was directly under the cache description. Then the next time I looked, it was messed up again, on all three browsers ? I just don't understand what's going on any more. Why can't GC.com get the website repaired? I'm wondering how long this is going to take............

You are still getting the so-called "lockup" problem, huh? I hadn't checked in a while, but did earlier today, and did not see the issue, so I had assumed they had fixed it somehow.
I don't know what else to say about the whitespace issue except that it has made me pretty much a Firefox convert.

Well, I've got the "White Space" problem with IE8, Firefox, and Chrome. That one is not relegated to IE8, only ??? This is really getting pretty disgusting.

19k · February 4, 2010

Well, I've got the "White Space" problem with IE8, Firefox, and Chrome. That one is not relegated to IE8, only ??? This is really getting pretty disgusting.

You need to install the Greasemonkey scripts and style sheets referenced in that other thread I pointed you do before Firefox will look any better.

February 4, 2010

The whole Done with Errors on page thing is getting really really really really really really old! Just to prove that it wasn't something installed on my system I wiped out and started over with XP Media Center Edition, SP3, IE 8......yeah, still the same crap. I regret paying the premium membership because I can't even look at caches.

19k · February 4, 2010

The whole Done with Errors on page thing is getting really really really really really really old! Just to prove that it wasn't something installed on my system I wiped out and started over with XP Media Center Edition, SP3, IE 8......yeah, still the same crap. I regret paying the premium membership because I can't even look at caches.

That is the exact setup I have at home, and I have no problems. At work I have XP Pro SP3, IE8... was having minor problems, but nothing I couldn't work around. No longer having any problem. Never have had a problem simply looking at caches, nor have I heard any reports of same with anything except for IE6.

1.7k · February 6, 2010

I checked the error message when the search result page did not display.
It said HTML Parsing Error-Unable to modify the parent container element before the child element is closed (KB927917)

Doesn't mean anything to me but maybe the powers to be can fix this issue.

Yup! That is exactly the error that I was getting and that I fixed by removing CoolIris. It may well be that CoolIris is not the only add-on that can cause this problem (in an email, Reef Runner told me that he doesn't have it, and doesn't even know what it is, but I also know that many people inadvertantly install add-ons without even realizing it).

My husband is deployed and he can no longer open gc.com He doesn't have the luxury of changing browsers, etc. The ship did not make any software changes. Any easy fixes for him?

February 6, 2010

Well, I've got the "White Space" problem with IE8, Firefox, and Chrome. That one is not relegated to IE8, only ??? This is really getting pretty disgusting.

You need to install the Greasemonkey scripts and style sheets referenced in that other thread I pointed you do before Firefox will look any better.

I don't know anything about any Greasemonkey, and why should I have to install any such crap ! I ought to be able to turn on my computer, bring up the browser of my choice, and log into GC.com........this is just a bunch of crap...................I'm really, really, really, really, really, getting fed up with this.......

(nothing personal, I assure you, just tired of this S _ _ _ !!!!)

February 6, 2010

Hi there

My friend is trying to sign up on the site but every time we try, it says that the passwords do not match and the same with the e-mail address. Please help?!

February 10, 2010

Well, I've got the "White Space" problem with IE8, Firefox, and Chrome. That one is not relegated to IE8, only ??? This is really getting pretty disgusting.

You need to install the Greasemonkey scripts and style sheets referenced in that other thread I pointed you do before Firefox will look any better.

I don't know anything about any Greasemonkey, and why should I have to install any such crap ! I ought to be able to turn on my computer, bring up the browser of my choice, and log into GC.com........this is just a bunch of crap...................I'm really, really, really, really, really, getting fed up with this.......

(nothing personal, I assure you, just tired of this S _ _ _ !!!!)

I totally agree reefrunner. I would assume that most geocachers are simply computer users and not techies nor do they care to become techies. We simply want to log onto geocaching.com, search for geocaches, and then go find them and log our results. Simple as that. Period. We don't want or shouldn't have to change browsers, install or uninstall stuff on our browsers, or change our browser settings. A website of this type needs to be as user friendly as possible. One would think that a website upgrade would make the website more user friendly instead of taking a step back.

With that being said, it appears as if progress has been made. As of right now I am able to search geocaches on the website like before, without getting the error message. A search of my nearest geocahces is loading up properly as it always had in the past. The only exception is that occasionally when I hit the "search" button all it does is reload the page and I have to hit "search" again. Still a little glitch there but not a big issue at all, considering how bad things had been before. I am at work right now using IE6. I will try tomorrow at home with IE7 and see if all is cool there too. Thank you for the fix!

Still there is another small issue I must report. It seems there is a problem with cache pages that have pictures on the cache main page. It looks like what is happening to me is that the middle section of the page is over to far to the left and the banner on the left hand side of the page is overlayed onto the middle section. This makes it difficult/impossible to read relevant information on the cache page. Here are a couple of caches that I am noticed this problem with: GC1CY6N, GC1R8HA. These are just a couple that I have noticed, surely there are others.

19k · February 10, 2010

Well, I've got the "White Space" problem with IE8, Firefox, and Chrome. That one is not relegated to IE8, only ??? This is really getting pretty disgusting.

You need to install the Greasemonkey scripts and style sheets referenced in that other thread I pointed you do before Firefox will look any better.

I don't know anything about any Greasemonkey, and why should I have to install any such crap ! I ought to be able to turn on my computer, bring up the browser of my choice, and log into GC.com........this is just a bunch of crap...................I'm really, really, really, really, really, getting fed up with this.......

(nothing personal, I assure you, just tired of this S _ _ _ !!!!)

I totally agree reefrunner. I would assume that most geocachers are simply computer users and not techies nor do they care to become techies. We simply want to log onto geocaching.com, search for geocaches, and then go find them and log our results. Simple as that. Period. We don't want or shouldn't have to change browsers, install or uninstall stuff on our browsers, or change our browser settings. A website of this type needs to be as user friendly as possible. One would think that a website upgrade would make the website more user friendly instead of taking a step back.

I hope you realize that I'm not part of Groundspeak... I'm just another geocacher like you.

You don't need to be a computer guru to install the stuff I'm talking about, and please trust me... you will have a much nicer web experience overall once you get used to it. Yeah, change is always difficult, but Microsoft has you brainwashed into thinking that any other browser is just too complicated. Hogwash!

Download Firefox... the download is free and painless. Do a Google search for the Grease Monkey add-on and install it... it takes one or two clicks, and no thinking to install. Once you have that, you are ready to rinstall the scripts that fix things up. Again, these have been made into no-brainer one or two clicks and you're ready to go.

Should you have to go through this? No... of course not. But you have two choices, apparently... live with what you've got, or accept the changes that have been offered. Simply sitting here and griping is not going to accomplish much.

19k · February 10, 2010

Let me add that once you have Grease Monkey installed, there are many, many, many more optional add-ons for Firefox that can make your internet experience much, much better and safer.

February 10, 2010

I've not had time this morning to read all the pages about this problem, but I've had a "waiting for Groundspeak" message in my lower right corner of the latest "FIREFOX" for more than a week that finally times out.

I deleted history, allowed NO plug ins or add ons, extensions of any type and nothing has changed.

At times, my high speed just zips through the pages getting things done, but more often it just sits, and sits, and sits. We did 12 caches yesterday and it took three ((3)) , hours to log them. Even using two totally different computers, both running Firefox.

As was said before by someone else, this is a hobby that I don't have to do even though I'm addicted as you can see by our numbers, but I do have another life somewhere and might ignore the alert that my premium membership is about to expire................ and I should up date now...

Tom

4.2k · February 10, 2010

as of the time of this post the page is not loading at all...just times out

February 11, 2010

As stated in my previous post, it seemed that progress had been made concerning the search/page loading problems. Last night at work using IE6 I was able to load pages relatively hassle free. Trying it now from home using IE7 I am still getting an error message sometimes when searching for caches, however, after refreshing the page the caches usually load up. The problem isn't as bad as when all this first started, but there are still issues that need resolved by geocaching.com.

And BTW, I am not complaining as some have accused me of. I am just trying to relay information so the problems can be resolved. I am also sticking with Internet Explorer like most of the free world.

19k · February 11, 2010

As stated in my previous post, it seemed that progress had been made concerning the search/page loading problems. Last night at work using IE6 I was able to load pages relatively hassle free. Trying it now from home using IE7 I am still getting an error message sometimes when searching for caches, however, after refreshing the page the caches usually load up. The problem isn't as bad as when all this first started, but there are still issues that need resolved by geocaching.com.

And BTW, I am not complaining as some have accused me of. I am just trying to relay information so the problems can be resolved. I am also sticking with Internet Explorer like most of the free world.

Your last log, the one that I labeled as "griping" was just that. That was not relaying any information except for your frustration, which is why I labeled it that, but that label was a very minor part of the point that I was trying to make in my reply. Did you hear the rest of it?

February 26, 2010

Well, as the originator, of this topic, I am glad to say that, now, today at least, the problem with the caches surrounding my home coordinates failing to load, is working perfectly (?), and, I am still using Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8. All I can say is, thanks, to whoever fixed this GC.com problem, on my end anyway.

Now, the only thing that I see wrong, is the excessive amount of "white space", on each cache page. It just appears that there is so much wasted space. It takes two, sometimes three pages, if you should want to print out a cache page. It sure would be nice if they could compact, or fix that annoying situation too.................but, at least, progress is being made........thanks :blink:

5.2k · February 26, 2010

It takes two, sometimes three pages, if you should want to print out a cache page.

Have you tried the print-friendly cache pages?

5.3k · March 2, 2010

Amusing story related to this thread here.

March 2, 2010

Well, as the originator, of this topic, I am glad to say that, now, today at least, the problem with the caches surrounding my home coordinates failing to load, is working perfectly (?), and, I am still using Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8. All I can say is, thanks, to whoever fixed this GC.com problem, on my end anyway.

Now, the only thing that I see wrong, is the excessive amount of "white space", on each cache page. It just appears that there is so much wasted space. It takes two, sometimes three pages, if you should want to print out a cache page. It sure would be nice if they could compact, or fix that annoying situation too.................but, at least, progress is being made........thanks

Boy was I WRONG.....I thought the problems on the GC.com website had been corrected. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. All the same old stuff, that I started out with, on the day of the website change, is still there. As has been mentioned, there is no pattern to these problems. They go and come. But you know what is really so frustrating? I'm trying so hard, to teach a couple of friends, about the joy and fun, that one can have, GeoCaching, but every time I try to show them how to work the website, it's one problem after another. Needless to say, I'm not getting anywhere fast, with my efforts to enlighten the others, because of the endless problems that keep occurring. We usually end up just quitting, completely disgusted !! :laughing:

COME ON GC.COM - PLEASE GET THE PROBLEMS FIXED - THIS IS GETTING "OLD" - REAL FAST - HOW LONG IS THIS GOING TO TAKE ? :mad:

And another strange occurrance, both of my friends are haveing the exact same problems on their computers, as I am, and NO, I don't have a clue what either of them are running, and I don't care. I'm beginning to think that really doesn't make any difference. And, all those who keep asking and pointing to my systems (3 of them, all different), and wanting me to try this and try that, SAVE YOUR BREATH, the problem AIN'T HERE, it's at GC.com....and I absolutely refuse to believe that I'm the only one with this problem. Just go back an read the post after post, entered by people with the very same or similiar problems. So far as I am concerned, GC.com has simply backed up and stepped in it, this time. To bad there's not another website to carry on this hobby, cause I'd be gone......... :mad: :mad: :mad:

Edited March 2, 2010 by reef runner

March 2, 2010

Oh thank God, I'm not the only person having issues! I admit I only read through the first page, but by scanning the last page, it seems there's no solution yet??

I can pull up geocaching.com on my work computer and log in, but that's about it. If I try to look at my past logs or search for a cache, the page gets "jumpy" and won't load. Eventually I'm forced to go to the Task Manager and terminate the unresponsive program. My work machine is old, running Windows 2000 (on a server?) and IE7 (I think). Is IE8 the most recent? If so, then I'm at least one version behind because the most recent is not compatible with this machine.

I do not have priviledges on this machine to change ANYTHING so upgrading IE, removing/adding plug-ins and/or Java stuff, switching to Foxfire....NONE of that is an option. I just wish the darn thing worked. Supposedly I'm getting an upgraded machine in the spring but I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah, the website probably works on my home computers, both of which are running the most recent versions of Windows and IE, but hey, I like to access it here as well. Right now, I'm wanting to find caches for a big trip, leaving on Thursday, and like someone said, I'm dead in the water. *sigh*

March 2, 2010

Oh thank God, I'm not the only person having issues! I admit I only read through the first page, but by scanning the last page, it seems there's no solution yet??

I can pull up geocaching.com on my work computer and log in, but that's about it. If I try to look at my past logs or search for a cache, the page gets "jumpy" and won't load. Eventually I'm forced to go to the Task Manager and terminate the unresponsive program. My work machine is old, running Windows 2000 (on a server?) and IE7 (I think). Is IE8 the most recent? If so, then I'm at least one version behind because the most recent is not compatible with this machine.

I do not have priviledges on this machine to change ANYTHING so upgrading IE, removing/adding plug-ins and/or Java stuff, switching to Foxfire....NONE of that is an option. I just wish the darn thing worked. Supposedly I'm getting an upgraded machine in the spring but I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah, the website probably works on my home computers, both of which are running the most recent versions of Windows and IE, but hey, I like to access it here as well. Right now, I'm wanting to find caches for a big trip, leaving on Thursday, and like someone said, I'm dead in the water. *sigh*

Good luck with the newer machines at home. That's just garbage, and most likely won't make any difference..................I'm using three different machines, all less than a year old, one desktop, two laptops, three different brands of computers, two different operating systems, Windows XP Pro on two, Windows Vista on one, and IE8 browser on all three, with absolutely all the latest updates, on everything. It makes no difference! Nothing is happening and I don't think GC.com even cares.............

I started this topic, sometime back & I've contacted GC.com support directly, all to no avail, and only to be told, that it's just my machines that are having the problems, oh, and now I forgot my neighbors, and oops, don't forget all the other members that have chimed in, on this forum, with the same or similar problem. It's one problem right after another, and nothing is happening................ :laughing: It's been long enough, and I say again, GC.com PLEASE FIX THESE PROBLEMS SO WE CAN GET BACK TO USING THE SITE WITHOUT CONTINUOUS PROBLEMS - HOW LONG IS THIS GOING TO TAKE..............

2.1k · March 2, 2010

It's not at all that we don't care, it's just that we can't reproduce the problem you're having. I don't mean to minimize the issue at all, but try to see it from our perspective. Can you fix a problem you can't see? We will keep looking.

March 2, 2010

It's not at all that we don't care, it's just that we can't reproduce the problem you're having. I don't mean to minimize the issue at all, but try to see it from our perspective. Can you fix a problem you can't see? We will keep looking.

Well it sure seems like a lot of people are having the problem. It's been explained to "whoever", over and over and over. People have sent you the error messages, the coding, screen shots of what we are seeing, and computer set-up galore. I don't know how much more information, we could supply. We are not using anything unusual. It's Windows XP and IE8 - all with the latest updates and versions.............How can that be so hard?

You guys have been telling me it's my problem, and now, just by chance, I run into a neighbor, yesterday, who was here, when it happened again, and yes, the exact same thing, is happening on his computer. Maybe it's something in the water ???

I'm just very frustrated and discouraged, along with a whole lot of other people. There are problems coming in by the truckload, not just under this topic, but under the GC.com forum itself. I've never seen so many problems, and "You're looking (?)"...........when is somebody going to do something ?

Again, sorry for the venting, but this is just unacceptable. I DO NO BELIEVE THAT I AM THE ONLY ONE WITH THIS PROBLEM...............gosh, have you guys seen all the problems that are being reported in the forums. It's an endless stream of problems, coming in everyday.

SORRY, but I'm outta here, before I say something very unacceptable.

And yes, I have been in direct contact ,with the GC.com customer support, and I may as well have spoken with a tree.........for all the help they provided. They basically told me that they didn't know what was wrong and really just left me hanging. No Reply to my return emails.

5.2k · March 3, 2010

The website is working perfectly for me. I haven't seen any of the problems you're talking about. Maybe it is something in the water over there?

Dump that POS IE and try Firefox. I'll bet it will then work for you. Firefox is water-proof.

March 3, 2010

The website is working perfectly for me. I haven't seen any of the problems you're talking about. Maybe it is something in the water over there?

Dump that POS IE and try Firefox. I'll bet it will then work for you. Firefox is water-proof.

Look, I know you are trying to help, but NOT funny. I'm so tired of people telling me to use Firefox, or Chrome, or whatever, I don't know what to do. As one member put it so clearly, most of the free world uses IE, and I intend on continuing to use it, as I have for years. Besides, I have tried, and I mean really tried, to force myself to use Firefox. Bottom line, I despise it and I will not allow myself to be forced, to use a browser that I hate, just because some programmers at GC.com got carried away, and threw something out here, way before it was ready.

As I said way back when this started, I don't have to GeoCache, but it's just a shame that they messed things up like this. I don't know what everybody is doing differently, but so far as I am aware, everyone that I personally know, that uses the GC.com website, is now having some kind of problem, right now, and nobody is getting anything done about it. Maybe you are right, it must be the water..........go figure.......

Oh, and nothing personal, I'm still just a little steamed, because this has been going on since the middle of January, exactly when the changes to the website were implemented..........2 + 2 = ???

5.3k · March 3, 2010

This may seem out of the blue, but I ran into this for the first time a couple weeks ago when helping a friend and I wonder if it could contribute:

You don't by any chance have "Fast Browser Search" set as your default search engine in IE8, do you?

It's spyware that is drive-by installed by some Facebook applications. It actively resists being disabled or deleted, so that even if you think you have disabled it in IE8, it's still running. Nasty little thing. If it is on your computer, I would bet actual money that it is the cause of your problems, since it appears to hijack pages as they are loading to collect info to send back to its home base.

Geocaching.com website problem

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