242142 - Mozilla doesn't display table from main slashdot page intermittently

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 217527

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Chris]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8

When you initially load slashdot.org's page, the main articles table doesn't
display, in fact the side table cells are "stretched" across the page (see
attachment). This appears to happen after I see mozilla's status bar try to
access slashdot's ad-server. We are behind a proxy server (web-marshall), which
intercepts http requests and replaces pages with it's own blocking webpage. 

Reproducible: Sometimes
Steps to Reproduce:
Go to slashdot.org. 

Actual Results:  
"Streched" table column. See attachment png. 

Expected Results:  
It should display the table correctly. 

OK, here's something odd. I have Firefox's Web Development 0.7 plugin. I go to
the "Outline" bar and choose "Outline table cells", and the entire page displays
properly (albeit with the boxes highlighting the cells). So AFAICS the webpage
data is there, just it hasn't displayed properly.

Comment 1

[Chris]

Attachment: Screen shot of incorrectly displayed page

Comment 2

[Chris]

Attachment: Log of captured out from the "Live Headers" plugin

I used the "Live Headers" plugin to see what http requests are being made. Hope
this helps...

Comment 3

[Bill Mason]

*** Bug 242141 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Daniel]

I've seen this also on Windows nightlies for a while now.. If I press reload a
few times, it'll work.  It's not just the front page as I've seen it while
posting comments also.

Comment 5

[Ross Charette]

(In reply to comment #4)
> I've seen this also on Windows nightlies for a while now.. If I press reload a
> few times, it'll work.  It's not just the front page as I've seen it while
> posting comments also.

I've seen this, or something very similar on a 2k machine, and on an OS X 10.3
machine.  It happened so consistently, even after removing and reinstalling the
program, that I switched back to IE on the 2k machine.  Hitting refresh
repetedly would not fix it, but sometimes hitting refresh, and resizing the
window AS it loaded the page would fix it...

Comment 6

[Chris]

Out of interest, are any of your guys running behind a proxy server? I can only
replicate this problem on my work machine that uses a proxy called
"Webmarshall". I can't do it at home, where I don't use a proxy server. 

Comment 7

[Ross Charette]

Attachment: kinda similar - also note how I'm scrolled over like half way, which is why you don't see the left column.

this happened too often on my win 2k box so I switched back to IE.

Comment 8

[Daniel]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Out of interest, are any of your guys running behind a proxy server? I can only
> replicate this problem on my work machine that uses a proxy called
> "Webmarshall". I can't do it at home, where I don't use a proxy server. 

Yes, my ISP routes all traffic throgh squid. Any idea why that would happen?

Comment 9

[Chris]

Can't really tell why it does this, though I suspect it has something to do with
the way Mozilla interacts with proxies. Please note that this is a complete
guess, and may not be the problem AT ALL... it's just I've only ever observed
this behaviour when running through a proxy. 

Comment 10

[Alan Hohn]

I have also seen the center table overlap the left table; reloading tends to
render it correctly. My setup at home uses a transparent proxy (squid) as part
of a NAT setup; work has the usual proxy a.k.a. "freedom is slavery" setup.

I agree with the above about the distressing nature of this bug. I can't be
positive, but I don't remember seeing it prior to 0.7. 

Comment 11

[Daniel]

I've noticed that I get the same results here at work.  At home, I know there's
a transparent squid proxy with our ISP, but here at work there is no proxy
(pacbell business dsl).  Anyone have ideas for us to help troubleshoot this? 
It's difficult to find a testcase because it's so sporatic..

Comment 12

[Rob Janssen]

I see both problems (the page with only left column and the overlapping columns).
I am behind a squid proxy as well.
Reload nearly always fixes it immediately, sometimes the second reload does.

Comment 13

[Rob Janssen]

Attachment: Example of overlapping columns

Additional info: Mozilla 1.7b on Linux
Accessing slashdot.org via squid on localhost

Comment 14

[Chris]

As I suspect that this is a proxy issue... is it possible to get you guys to
download the "Live Headers" plugin and capture the HTTP headers as you load the
page? Who knows... it might be helpful. 

Comment 15

[Rob Janssen]

I have added slashdot.org to the list of domains not to use the proxy, and the
problem is still present.
So, it seems it is not (only) a proxy issue.  Or the problem is not caused by
something on the main page but by something loaded from another domain name.

Comment 16

[Rob Janssen]

I also found that the incorrectly-formatted page (overlapping columns) can be
fixed by hitting the backward and forward buttons, without doing a reload.
So it looks like the received data is correct, but only the rendering is wrong.

Comment 17

[Rob Janssen]

The overlapping columns subproblem is a duplicate of bug 217527

Comment 18

[Michael Lefevre]

Is that a subproblem? I don't really see anything mentioned here that's not
covered by that bug.  The proxy/not proxy thing is because it's a problem with
"incremental reflow", which means it depends how fast and in how many chunks
Mozilla/Firefox receives the page across the net.

I'm pretty sure this is just a dupe.  The fix has just been checked in to the
branches - if anyone can reproduce a problem with a 20040611 build or later,
then there may be another issue and we can reopen this.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 217527 ***

Comment 19

[Javad]

I can get it to occur under .9 final and to fix it you hit back then foward again.

Comment 20

[Michael Lefevre]

You can also fix it by reducing and then increasing the font size (ctrl -, ctrl +).

The bug is fixed on the trunk, but the fix caused a different problem with some
other sites. Hopefully before we get to 1.0, that problem will also be fixed,
and then the combined fix can go into Firefox.