Opera - never finishes download on many asp, cfm pages

[tedster]

The title says it all, and I'm wondering what the issue could be. I've noticed it before, but now I have a new client whose pages are showing the same symptoms. Lots of asp and cfm pages never show "done" in Opera 7.54. The source code is all there, and the image all are loaded - but the browser never triggers a "Done" status.

Is there some final handshake that's needed and commonly missing for these server-side scripts?

[encyclo]

Interesting... Is there a commonality in terms of server software? For example, are you connecting only to IIS servers or do you get the same problem when connecting to Apache servers too?

[tedster]

I cannot yet say it's exclusively IIS, because my sample size is too small (just started getting curious), but every problem page I've checked so far is running on IIS, including the new client.

Plus, I've just tried the Opera configuration that saves space by displaying the status bar only when needed, and then it's over the location bar - so now it's painfully obvious when a download hangs.

[mattglet]

I also have this problem a LOT. All my images are present, everything is fine, except the status bar keeps on chugging. I have just chalked it up as a bug. Although, I'm using v8b3 right now, and it's still apparent.

[bakedjake]

tedster - Is your host using gzip compression?

I've noticed this bug when the host is using gzip compression, and it seems to come and go.

[tedster]

Good one, Jake - but no, my client is not using gzip (I've asked them to and they won't!), even though some of the other hanging websites are.

However, their sysadmin and I just went over a few things on the phone, and it looks like we got rid of the problem by changing one of the server set-up items under "enable scripts/executables". I'm still quite mystified and not 100% sure we have it even now. But now for the first time, Opera will finish the download.

This site has also been having trouble getting pages fully indexed by Google - something like 80% of their urls are just showing in "we know it's there" mode after 14 months. So I have a sense this is not just an Opera problem but is also affecting Googlebot and most likely other user agents here and there.

However, I only saw the problem with Opera, not IE, FF or Safari. And as I said, I see it on many other sites when I browse, so it's some common configuration thing.

I'm going to get some server logs from them tomorrow and see what story they tell.

[tedster]

This just occured to me - the knowledge base and support pages at microsoft.com are some of the most constant problems for Opera. Does IIS 6 come out of the box with some kind of native compression (rather than gzip)? Maybe this is what Opera is allergic to.

[encyclo]

Do you mean this tedster?

Utilizing HTTP Compression (microsoft.com) [microsoft.com]

It's built-in, but I don't think it's enabled by default. The article doesn't make it very clear, but I assume it is gzip compression.

[tedster]

This page at Microsoft [eu.microsoft.com] makes it clear that there are two compressions schemes, gzip and deflate. And the page also says "For maximum compatibility, leave both compression schemes enabled."

I've also learned that neither one is enabled by default. You need to enable the ISAPI.dll and then create a new web service extension that lists one required file - \Windows\System32\inetsrv\gzip.dll - this is apparently the ISAPI that does both gzip and deflate compression.

I think it's worth my probing this direction a bit more, but I realize it may be a red herring. I started with what looked like a browser problem and now I'm deep into the server setup!