244164 - Java menu never finishes loading

Status: VERIFIED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Robert Praetorius]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a) Gecko/20040518 Firefox/0.8.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a) Gecko/20040518 Firefox/0.8.0+

The menu bar near the top of apycom's home page goes from gray to blue, displays
the string Loading. . . towards the left, then sits there indefinitely.  On the
status bar one can see the message Applet apxpdd started.


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. open a new browser window
2. type http://apycom.com or http://www.apycom.com into the URL box
3. hit the Enter key
4. close this window, repeat steps 1-3, then wait. . .and wait. . .and wait

Actual Results:  
The 1st time I went to apycom, the Java menu came up.  The 2nd and successive
times, all I got was the loading message.  Reloading the page makes the menu
come up.  Clearing cache and retrying makes the menu come up.

Expected Results:  
The Java menu should always come up (not just on the 1st try or after a reload
or after clearing cache)

my Java plugin .DLLs are version 1.4.2.  I also see this with
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040514

I have seen this for years on an internal site (with no external access)
that uses apycom-style menus across many versions of Mozilla, Phoenix, Firebird
and Firefox (and Java .DLL versions and many patch levels of NT4 and MS Windows
2000).  Every now and then I go to apycom to see if I can reproduce the problem
there.  Now I can.

Yes, I'm behind a firewall (but there's no firewall between me and the
internal site where I've had this problem for ages (since I start using Mozilla,
about 4 years ago, in the M16 days (approx.))

If you have any trouble reproducing this and have suggestions on things I
could do to help track down the problem, I'd be glad to hear them.

Comment 1

[shadytrees]

WFM on Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7b) Gecko/20040411 Firefox/0.
8.0+. Try upgrading to Java 1.5 or downgrading to 1.3?

Comment 2

[Samir L. Boulema]

WFM

If you can reproduce this with a new build, then please reopen

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a2) Gecko/20040523
Firefox/0.8.0+

Comment 3

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

I think a few more WFM comments are really necessary. And sboulema, you should
also ask the reporter about the age of his profile, what extensions/themes he is
using, etc.

Also it is good practise to CC yourself on a bug you are resolving.

I can test at the moment, because I can't connect to apycom.com, so reopening...

Comment 4

[Robert Praetorius]

funny you should ask. . .

reproduced it on the first try with
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a2) Gecko/20040524
Firefox/0.8.0+

my offer to do whatever debugging I (reasonably) can stands

BTW, if you're double-checking bugs that affect Firefox, 
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83289
was classified as critical and is broken again (I'm not the author and
can't reopen it, though)

Comment 5

[Andreas Kunz]

I also see this problem when loading that page, but when I reload the page, the
menu appears correctly. The same for you, Robert?
Not sure if this is an applet or a Mozilla bug...

Comment 6

[Robert Praetorius]

Deleted all profiles and reproduced it.  I'm using the classic theme.

If it's an applet bug, it's one that doesn't happen in IE6 or Netscape 4.8:-)

Will try Java 1.5,0 Beta 1

Comment 7

[Robert Praetorius]

Still reproducible in Mozilla and Firefox with Java 1.5.0 beta 1
Still doesn't happen in IE6 and Netscape 4.8.

Andreas Kunz sez in http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=244164#c5 :
> but when I reload the page, the
> menu appears correctly. The same for you, Robert?

Yes, as noted in the original bug report.

Glad to know that someone else has seen it.  Makes me feel a little less like
I've been living in the Twilight Zone for years.

I should add to the list of workarounds (reload, clear cache):
go to another page and go back.

And to Actual Results section: the cursor switches briefly to an hourglass
once every 30 seconds or so (while the menu bar sits there and says Loading. . .)

Comment 8

[Robert Praetorius]

For the first time in years, the Java menu on the internal website loaded (under
the conditions described where it normally fails).  Likewise, the one at
http://www.apycom.com loaded.  Using
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040608 and
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040614 Firefox/0.9
now.  Hope it stays fixed.

Comment 9

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

setting WFM as per last comment reporter