Styles not loading... sometimes

once in a while the page displays without styles

[Finder]

My CSS and HTML both validate, but once in a while (1% of the time?) the page will load unstyled, as if the css file does not exist. This has happened in IE 6.0, Mozilla 1.6 and 1.5.

This site is a pure CSS rewrite. The old site -- a mishmash of tables and CSS -- never, ever displayed without styles.

I'm completely at a loss. Has anyone else seen this? Could it be caused by server lag; i.e., if the browser waits too long for the css file to download it just displays without it? Or a caching problem?

[DrDoc]

This problem is called FUOC - Flash of Unstyled Content. It's a problem that occasionally affects most browsers. A site search [webmasterworld.com] or other search [google.com] will provide some useful information as well as available workarounds.

[Finder]

Thanks for the info. I'm not sure that's it, though. I'm seeing the page load completely as if the css file doesn't exist, not just in a brief flash. But I am using @import, unlike my old site. I'll switch back and see if it helps.

Thanks again for the help. This one had me stumped!