Site disappears in IE 6

[gregerly]

Hello All,

I am having a strange problem with a website I'm working on. All is
well in IE 7, Firefox, and Safari, but in IE 6 the site literally
dissappears. When first going to the site, it renders fine, but if I
click any of the links on the sites main navigaion bar, all I get is
the background. All pages validate XHTML strict and use CSS for
layout and PHP for the server side stuff.

Also, when this happens, I can not do a "View Source" in IE 6.
Nothing happens. Any ideas as to why this might be happening?

Site URL: http://www.fresnofusion.com

Thanks for any insights anyone might be able to offer.

Greg

 

[gregerly]

Hello All,

I am having a strange problem with a website I'm working on. All is
well in IE 7, Firefox, and Safari, but in IE 6 the site literally
dissappears. When first going to the site, it renders fine, but if I
click any of the links on the sites main navigaion bar, all I get is
the background. All pages validate XHTML strict and use CSS for
layout and PHP for the server side stuff.

Also, when this happens, I can not do a "View Source" in IE 6.
Nothing happens. Any ideas as to why this might be happening?

Site URL:http://www.fresnofusion.com

Thanks for any insights anyone might be able to offer.

Greg

Another note, if you click on a link and all you get is the
background, clicking Refresh on your IE6 browser will bring the page
up and look like it should. Which means that you have to click each
link, then refresh, and then you get the page. This is the strangest
thing I've seen in a while!

Thanks again for any help.

Greg

 

[dorayme]

Hello All,

I am having a strange problem with a website I'm working on. All is
well in IE 7, Firefox, and Safari, but in IE 6 the site literally
dissappears. When first going to the site, it renders fine, but if I
click any of the links on the sites main navigaion bar, all I get is
the background. All pages validate XHTML strict and use CSS for
layout and PHP for the server side stuff.

Also, when this happens, I can not do a "View Source" in IE 6.
Nothing happens. Any ideas as to why this might be happening?

Site URL: http://www.fresnofusion.com

Not ok on Safari (on a Mac) nor in iCab is all well. No header
in Safari, missing content on left too... In iCab the header is
there but lots of missing things underneath that.

You are relying on js and this is not such a good idea. iCab in
fact reports trouble with the js:

http://www.fresnofusion.com/javascript/prototype.js
JavaScript Error (878/35): Cannot create an object from an
undefined value
JavaScript Error (878/35): Cannot create an object from an
undefined value
JavaScript Error (878/35): Cannot create an object from an
undefined value

 

[Neredbojias]

Another note, if you click on a link and all you get is the
background, clicking Refresh on your IE6 browser will bring the page
up and look like it should. Which means that you have to click each
link, then refresh, and then you get the page. This is the strangest
thing I've seen in a while!

Thanks again for any help.

I think it's because you're using xhtml (even though your content-type is
text/html.) IE 6 doesn't like that newfangled stuff.

The other possibility I see is (excessive) javascript.

 

[Andy Dingley]

All is well in IE 7, Firefox, and Safari, but in IE 6 the site literally
dissappears.

Looks like a good piece of work to start with (it's that rare thing,
an XHTML Appendix C site that gets things right).

However you're using client-side JavaScript to generate content. This
is always a bad idea:

* It's complicated. Why not use simple static HTML and save yourself
some work?

* It's slow to download and renders badly (nothing appears until the
whole page is ready to show up)

* It fails for non-JS clients

* (As is happening to you here), errors in the JS may break in some
browsers, cause the whole thing to stop working and then wreak havoc
with the results.


I could point out bit-by-bit changes to fix the client-side stuff, but
really you ought to just kill it in favour of purely server-side
content assembly.

 

[rf]

Hello All,

I am having a strange problem with a website I'm working on. All is
well in IE 7, Firefox, and Safari, but in IE 6 the site literally
dissappears. When first going to the site, it renders fine, but if I
click any of the links on the sites main navigaion bar, all I get is
the background. All pages validate XHTML strict and use CSS for
layout and PHP for the server side stuff.

Also, when this happens, I can not do a "View Source" in IE 6.
Nothing happens. Any ideas as to why this might be happening?

Site URL: http://www.fresnofusion.com

Thanks for any insights anyone might be able to offer.

Something that nobody else has spotted yet: If I type in the address bar the
URL of the, say, about page then I get it. If I use your navigation to get
there I get a blank page.

The only difference (apart from some javascript skullduggery you may have
engaged in) is the session cookie (why do you need a session cookie
anyway?).

Is your session processing stuffing up with your [assumed] browser sniffing
for IE6? Perhaps you are outputting stuff before the headers can be
generated, thus causing a PHP error that you cannot see. Try looking at your
server error logs.

Try removing all session stuff and see what happens. You don't need it
anyway. And if you do then, why?

 

[gregerly]

Hello All,

I am having a strange problem with a website I'm working on. All is
well in IE 7, Firefox, and Safari, but in IE 6 the site literally
dissappears. When first going to the site, it renders fine, but if I
click any of the links on the sites main navigaion bar, all I get is
the background. All pages validate XHTML strict and use CSS for
layout and PHP for the server side stuff.

Also, when this happens, I can not do a "View Source" in IE 6.
Nothing happens. Any ideas as to why this might be happening?

Site URL:http://www.fresnofusion.com

Thanks for any insights anyone might be able to offer.

Something that nobody else has spotted yet: If I type in the address bar the
URL of the, say, about page then I get it. If I use your navigation to get
there I get a blank page.

The only difference (apart from some javascript skullduggery you may have
engaged in) is the session cookie (why do you need a session cookie
anyway?).

Is your session processing stuffing up with your [assumed] browser sniffing
for IE6? Perhaps you are outputting stuff before the headers can be
generated, thus causing a PHP error that you cannot see. Try looking at your
server error logs.

Try removing all session stuff and see what happens. You don't need it
anyway. And if you do then, why?

I'll check that out Richard, it's for an Admin login type thing, which
checks to see if the admin is logged in, then gives a link to the
admin area. I'll look into that. The javascript seemed to be a
neccessary evil as the client wanted an RSS reader where they could
click thru the items. That's where the use of javascript comes in, I
download the RSS feed fia PHP curl, then process it with javascript.
thanks to everyone for your help. it is much appreciated.

Greg

 

[gregerly]

Hello All,

I am having a strange problem with a website I'm working on. All is
well in IE 7, Firefox, and Safari, but in IE 6 the site literally
dissappears. When first going to the site, it renders fine, but if I
click any of the links on the sites main navigaion bar, all I get is
the background. All pages validate XHTML strict and use CSS for
layout and PHP for the server side stuff.

Also, when this happens, I can not do a "View Source" in IE 6.
Nothing happens. Any ideas as to why this might be happening?

Site URL:http://www.fresnofusion.com

Thanks for any insights anyone might be able to offer.

Something that nobody else has spotted yet: If I type in the address bar the
URL of the, say, about page then I get it. If I use your navigation to get
there I get a blank page.

The only difference (apart from some javascript skullduggery you may have
engaged in) is the session cookie (why do you need a session cookie
anyway?).

Is your session processing stuffing up with your [assumed] browser sniffing
for IE6? Perhaps you are outputting stuff before the headers can be
generated, thus causing a PHP error that you cannot see. Try looking at your
server error logs.

Try removing all session stuff and see what happens. You don't need it
anyway. And if you do then, why?

Richard,

As it turns out, it was the session_start(); I have at the beginning
of all these pages. I have no idea why as this hasn't happened
before, and it was just a check to see if the admin was logged in, and
if he is, show a link back to the admin area. Very strange. Thanks
for your insight to this and I'll write back here if I find a
solution.

Thanks again,

Greg

 

[rf]

Is your session processing stuffing up with your [assumed] browser
sniffing
for IE6? Perhaps you are outputting stuff before the headers can be
generated, thus causing a PHP error that you cannot see. Try looking at
your
server error logs.

Try removing all session stuff and see what happens. You don't need it
anyway. And if you do then, why?

Richard,

As it turns out, it was the session_start(); I have at the beginning
of all these pages.

I always check for the session cookie first:

if (isset($_COOKIE['PHPSESSID']))
{
session_start();

That is, unless "admin" is in the process of logging in, when I force a
session cookie on the user.

Remember, some users disable all cookies, even session cookies.