Is BON causing your browser to crash?

by Hopkins Horn on Nov 17, 2009 11:48 AM CST

Let me state up top that I know that this would be a sbnation.com issue and not a specific BON issue, but before contacting sbnation directly, I wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing the same issues I am.

Out of the blue, my browser has started to crash fairly frequently over the past couple of weeks, and by trial and error, I am very confident that BON is what is causing the crashes.

My browser is Firefox 3.5.5 (the most recent release), and I am running the most recent version of Apple's OS (Snow Leopard). I typically browse with 3+ tabs open at a time, with BON usually occupying one of the tabs. Once the crashes start, not loading BON in a tab stops the crashing. The crashes tend to come shortly after a BON refresh.

Refreshing BON much more often than not does not cause a crash, but what I am guessing is that BON has so many different moving parts when loading that even one of the moving parts stalling/failing causes the crash.

Here is an incomplete list of what loads at the same time BON loads -- these URLs are taken from the "Transferring data from . . ." in the bottle left corner of Firefox as a page loads. This list is incomplete as I saw a number of other URLs which loaded too quickly for me to write them down accurately:

kaltura.com
backtype.com
specificmedia.com
doubleclick.com
2mdn.net
sitemeter.com
sbnation.com
glam.com
athetixnation.com
tremormedia.com
adnxs.com
yieldmanager.com
google-analytics.com
llnwd.net
advertising.com
quickserve.com
pointroll.com
voicefive.com
pulse360.com
austinpost.com

That's a hell of a lot of that needs to load properly to ensure smooth browsing or fast page-loading.

So is anyone else experiencing similar performance issues recently when visiting BON?

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Comments

no issues on my xp machine at work or win7 machine at home

try re-installing FF.

3/19/2009 - Dogus Balbay Made a Three-Pointer. Never Forget.

by burrito on Nov 17, 2009 11:55 AM CST reply actions

no issue on win7 at all

Agree – reinstall FF

by texascfo on Nov 17, 2009 12:06 PM CST reply actions

I was having issues on FF but switched the google chrome

and havent been having any issues at all.

by UTrumbo on Nov 17, 2009 12:09 PM CST reply actions

to* google chrome, even. nt.

by UTrumbo on Nov 17, 2009 12:09 PM CST up reply actions

Were the issues you were experiencing on FF pre-switch with BON or with other sites?

by Hopkins Horn on Nov 17, 2009 12:17 PM CST up reply actions

with BON and facebook. nt.

by UTrumbo on Nov 17, 2009 12:26 PM CST up reply actions

I've found firefox 3.5.5 to be unusually crashtastic

BON, facebook, and any other site that constantly updates (ESPN Gamecast/fantasy cast come to mind) leads to a problem. I’m one of those nerds who runs five different browsers though, so I haven’t seen it as a big deal.

proud to swim home

by learned hand on Nov 17, 2009 12:39 PM CST up reply actions

No problems with XP and (Chrome or Explorer)

May I suggest downloading Spybot Search and Destroy? It’s free, and it will clear out the many nasties that may be causing you issues. I have to run it every time my 7-year-old plays online games.

Watch out, I bite.

by EddieTheAlbinoSquirrel on Nov 17, 2009 12:30 PM CST reply actions

It's never crashed on me, but then again I have adblock plus on.

From that list, it sure looks like BON loads an assload of advertiser ads on the site. One of them may be clashing with your settings. Possibly a javascript-based ad. I would install adblock plus and block all javascripts from loading on BON.

In-VINCE-able.

by iamjackburton on Nov 17, 2009 12:41 PM CST reply actions

BTW just to be clear

I do support my favorite sites by putting the site in my Adblock Plus exception list to allow them to show their ads and get paid, but if their ads are too annoying (too many, audios, etc) or are launching pop-ups all over the place, the adblock plus comes back on.

In-VINCE-able.

by iamjackburton on Nov 17, 2009 12:43 PM CST up reply actions

At home:

I run the newest firefox with snow leopard, and I have not had any issues. However, I also use adblock plus.

by Thor84 on Nov 17, 2009 1:34 PM CST reply actions

I've been having a lot of problems as well

And I would mark the time-frame similarly – its seems to have started a few weeks ago.

Further, I have had these problems on both a Mac and a PC, and with three different browsers. And no other site seems to be behaving this way (facebook included).

by BrooklynHorn on Nov 17, 2009 1:38 PM CST reply actions

Was there a slight redesign at BON/SBNation around the time you started seeing the problems?

by Hopkins Horn on Nov 17, 2009 2:06 PM CST up reply actions

Don't recall.

I first noticed it on a gameday a few weeks back (OSU??), and I assumed the site was just overloaded with comments from the game. But BON has been really slow ever since.

by BrooklynHorn on Nov 17, 2009 10:31 PM CST up reply actions

It's happened to me too

same setup (basically) as you have. But it’s not that frequent. It happened several times last week but that was it. Nothing now.

by UT92 on Nov 17, 2009 2:04 PM CST reply actions

I'm running FF 3.5.5 with Snow Leopard - no crashes

Although I must admit that BON does take a long time to load with all of the SB Nation ads and functions. I have accepted this as the cost of supporting the website.

I am not using any special ad blockers.

by jimjar on Nov 17, 2009 2:37 PM CST reply actions

I just disabled Adblock and so far no problems

Jumped around to a couple different sbnation sites too. I’m using 3.5.5 and win7-64

3/19/2009 - Dogus Balbay Made a Three-Pointer. Never Forget.

by burrito on Nov 17, 2009 5:00 PM CST reply actions

Thanks all

Sounds like not too many are having the same issues I am…

by Hopkins Horn on Nov 17, 2009 5:21 PM CST reply actions

I am.

Most recent version of Firefox, too. On a Mac. Only at home, though. Usually when I have more than one tab open. It’s a fairly recent problem. Only difference is I’m not using Snow Leopard, just Leopard.

by TexasTexasYeehaw on Nov 17, 2009 6:19 PM CST up reply actions

Yes...with Blackberry Browser

Mine works fine on IE in Windows 7, but I have been getting unusual lockups in Blackberry Browser (about the last 2-3 weeks). I’ve noticed it on several different models of Blackberry.

by BigJohnson on Nov 17, 2009 8:32 PM CST reply actions

5 minutes after I posted

IE on Windows 7 crashed while viewing another Fan Post

by BigJohnson on Nov 17, 2009 8:47 PM CST up reply actions

It happens to me as well...

and now that I think about it…BON is usually open in one of the tabs.

"Stats are for losers. I like winning games." - Will Muschamp
"Somebody will always break your records. It is how you live that counts." - Earl Campbell

by Mulliganville on Nov 17, 2009 9:31 PM CST reply actions

Have had some problems recently

But it’s happened too infrequently for me to isolate it to BON for sure. Has seemed to happen several times with no BON open, leading me to wonder if it was Firefox. Really don’t know, but if the problem persists and folks do isolate it to BON, please let me know. Could be that highlights player added in the right sidebar; if so, we’ll can it.

Running Firefox 3.5.5 with Snow Leopard.

You ain't hurt.

by Peter Bean on Nov 18, 2009 12:29 AM CST reply actions

There is um a lot of ads on the site

On the above the fold screen alone you got four already. I’m guessing the issue may be the video player in the sidebar….

In-VINCE-able.

by iamjackburton on Nov 18, 2009 12:41 AM CST reply actions

I usually run it in safari on my mac

No problems here.

by Ohio Horn on Nov 18, 2009 6:17 AM CST reply actions

Macs

I’ve had severe problems under Snow Leopard. I use both Safari and FF on a regular basis.

What appears to be happening is that if you use both of these browsers, file system permissions get set incorrectly, then if you go to a site that has a fair amount of flash enabled, you’ll get the crash.

Can someone else test this and verify that?

Go Big Red Nebraska!
Our Cobs Are Bigger Than Yours!
Corn Nation!
Twitter!
cornnation@gmail.com

by Jon Johnston on Nov 18, 2009 7:55 AM CST reply actions

sorry

file system permissions, specifically on the flash add-ons. if you run disk utility and repair permissions, you’ll be fine for a while.

but… can someone else please verify that?

Go Big Red Nebraska!
Our Cobs Are Bigger Than Yours!
Corn Nation!
Twitter!
cornnation@gmail.com

by Jon Johnston on Nov 18, 2009 7:58 AM CST up reply actions

There is so much that could be wrong it's hardly worth trying to diagnose the problem.

The easy fix is download the latest ver of the browser you want to use. Then uninstall the browser you use. Re install the new version clean, the check for the browser apps you need (acrobat, flash, java) and install the latest versions
.
If you have a fast connection maybe 15 -20 minutes. I think some times all the updates and security patches don’t always work smoothly as they should. Re-install is mostly faster than cleaning up a junked up browser app.

by Xerxes on Nov 18, 2009 9:41 AM CST reply actions