439826 - forums.relicnews.com - Links to a page position not loading properly in forums

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[Maktaka]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0

Using the "Go to newest post" and "Go to first unread post" arrow links in a vBulletin-powered forum do not function properly. Rather than going to where the specified post is on the page, they go to where the post WOULD be if no avatars or signature images were present.

In Firefox 2 (all versions) this would occur only on the first loading of the page (before the various images were stored in the cache). Once the images were cached, reusing the link or navigating elsewhere in the forum would load the page centered on the correct post.

In Firefox 3.0, the incorrect position is always used, even after the page's contents are cached. Firefox is apparently also caching the (incorrect) page position of the link rather than recalcuating it after all assets are cached. Links with position information should have the position recalculated every time, it should not be cached. If it is cached, it should not be stored until AFTER the entire page has loaded.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to http://forums.relicnews.com/forumdisplay.php?f=29
2. Click on the blue down arrow to the left of a thread title or the blue right arrow to the right of the most recent poster's name.
3.
Actual Results:  
The page will initially load with the correct post at the top of the screen. As images load, this post will likely be pushed down, possibly off the bottom of the screen. Going back and following the link again will briefly load the page correctly centered before snapping to the incorrect position the page eventually arrived at after the first load.

Expected Results:  
After all of the assets are loaded, following the link should always place the appropriate post at the top of the screen (which worked correctly in Firefox 2.x).

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Confirmed on Windows XP. 
Regression range is
http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsquery.cgi?module=PhoenixTinderbox&date=explicit&mindate=1199708400&maxdate=1199713799
-> Bug 332246.

Comment 2

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

I see  onload="if (is_ie || is_moz) { fetch_object('currentPost').scrollIntoView(!is_moz); }" in the code.

That makes this a tech evangelism issue.
Because !is_moz == false for Mozilla, and scrollIntoView(false) didn't work correctly in Mozilla (working like scrollIntoView(true)), this used to be no problem with the forum.

Afaics, I don't see the need for the !is_moz thing, they should just call fetch_object('currentPost').scrollIntoView(true); and everything should work fine in IE, Firefox2 and Firefox3.

Comment 3

[Maktaka]

So just to be clear, this is an error in the website's code, not a bug in Firefox? If so, I'll give the site admins a heads up, but I want to be sure I understood you correctly.

(In reply to comment #2)
> I see  onload="if (is_ie || is_moz) {
> fetch_object('currentPost').scrollIntoView(!is_moz); }" in the code.
> 
> That makes this a tech evangelism issue.
> Because !is_moz == false for Mozilla, and scrollIntoView(false) didn't work
> correctly in Mozilla (working like scrollIntoView(true)), this used to be no
> problem with the forum.
> 
> Afaics, I don't see the need for the !is_moz thing, they should just call
> fetch_object('currentPost').scrollIntoView(true); and everything should work
> fine in IE, Firefox2 and Firefox3.
> 

Comment 4

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> So just to be clear, this is an error in the website's code, not a bug in
> Firefox? If so, I'll give the site admins a heads up, but I want to be sure I
> understood you correctly.

Yeah, if you could give the site admins a heads up, that would be great.
Just changing:
fetch_object('currentPost').scrollIntoView(!is_moz);
into:
fetch_object('currentPost').scrollIntoView(true);
should be enough to fix the issue.

Comment 5

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

INCOMPLETE due to lack of activity since the end of 2009.

If someone is willing to investigate the issues raised in this bug to determine whether they still exist, *and* work with the site in question to fix any existing issues, please feel free to re-open and assign to yourself.

Sorry for the bugspam; filter on "NO MORE PRE-2010 TE BUGS" to remove.