need help with never-before-seen mac IE page loading problem

[bjaworski]

i'm experiencing an issue with some pages not loading up on Mac IE 5.1 and
i'm stumped.

Here's what I've noticed:

- The home page loads OK

- Any page accessed via a link from the home page, like [example.com...] , hang midway through loading. Once you hit "stop" you can see that the page is partially loaded.

- Any page that is accessed via a form submit, like any of the pull downs on the home page, loads fine.

- All pages work OK on PC IE and Netscape, and on Mac Netscape.

- If I save the rendered HTML with Mac Netscape and then open it in IE it works OK.

This is very odd ­ does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this?

Many thanks,

Bart Jaworski

[edited by: tedster at 3:21 am (utc) on July 9, 2002]
[edit reason] urls edited and snipped [/edit]

[gph]

Is this on 1 Mac or more than 1?

[bjaworski]

This is occuring on multiple macs - only with IE.

[Macguru]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld bjaworski.
Did you read paynt's welcome post [webmasterworld.com]? Nice way to get started here.

Are these Macs connected to the net with a ADSL connexion?

[bjaworski]

Some are and some aren't.

[amoore]

yeah, I've found tons of pages that don't render on my IE on mac OSX. The page sits around blank even though it's fully downloaded. It seems that there is usually some javascript or table 'problem' involved. Anyway, if I hit reload, or scroll around, or try to select a bunch of text, or something that eventually the whole page becomes visible.

I've just come to expect it.

[Macguru]

Hi Bart,

I just dug throught Microsoft's support pages, with very little success. I hope for you we can find a solution soon. It's been noted before on several occasions, both in USENET and on
countless Web forums.

Could you tell us what happends either when you resize the window (should force
a full window redraw) or hit the Refresh button? If everything is fine after this, it is a known bug and nothing can be done on your side (If you happen to develop the site) to fix this.

I don't know if a proper fix is planned for implementation any time soon.

I see .cfm in URL. What kind of cold fusion server is this? What kind of extensions are installed on server?

I see you mention IE 5.1, what is (are) your Mac OS version (s)?

[bjaworski]

The problem does not go away when browser is resized or when refresh is used.

I'm using cold fusion pro v5 on nt advanced server 2000.

There are no extensions installed as far as i know. The only "unusual" thing about this server is that i have something called "URL scan" running on it which i got from microsoft's web site as a recommended fix for some security hole / worm vulnerability. url scan rejects any ususual requests made to the web server.

thanks,

bart

[Macguru]

Hi bjaworski,

Unfortunatly, I did not find any cure to this situation. I cannot even pinpoint the IE bug.
IE for Mac is well knowed for not rendering complex pages properly. But most of this is fixed by simply reloading the page.

As far as I know, I am afraid there is nothing you can do on your site to fix this.

[amoore]

You might want to make sure your HTML validates. Often a missing close table tag or something is the culprit.

[mivox]

a missing close table tag

Missing tags are known mainly for causing problems with Netscape... It almost sounds like the problem is with ColdFusion navigation somehow, if the rendered HTML works fine when saved in NN and opened in IE, and pages loaded through drop downs work OK.

Dunno anything about CF though, so I haven't the slightest idea where to look there.

[bjaworski]

Thanks for everyone's suggestions!

Cheers,

Bart