# A strange grey box

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-strange-grey-box/345277>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [February 20, 2006, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-strange-grey-box/345277 "2006-02-20T02:42:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-strange-grey-box/345277/1 "2006-02-20T02:42:27Z")

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I was browsing through the poll on the SDMB community in IMHO, and stumbled upon this ([http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v144/Jayn\_Newell/mysterybox.jpg](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v144/Jayn_Newell/mysterybox.jpg)).

Anyone have any idea what it is?

(On preview…wow Photobucket shrunk that a lot)

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**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-strange-grey-box/345277/2 "2006-02-20T02:56:42Z")

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Initial WAG is that it looks like a standard repainting problem–when a piece of UI is displayed on top of another piece of UI and then goes away, the system sometimes hiccups and doesn’t “repaint” the UI that you’re now supposed to be seeing.

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**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-strange-grey-box/345277/3 "2006-02-20T06:57:29Z")

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What they said.

I bet when you refreshed, it went away. 🙂

TubaDiva

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**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-strange-grey-box/345277/4 "2006-02-20T13:05:25Z")

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Hmmm, interesting, it stayed there through three page loads and a computer restart, but as soon as I hit refresh it went away.

Well, mystery solved.

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**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2006, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-strange-grey-box/345277/5 "2006-02-21T00:00:25Z")

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I’ve seen similar artifacts briefly, during page load. (I also use Firefox). I’m pretty sure it’s related to the Google Ad box at the bottom of the page. Either waiting for the page to load or re-loading has fixed it the very few times it’s been an issue for me.

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**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2006, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-strange-grey-box/345277/6 "2006-02-21T00:05:52Z")

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It’s a Slaver stasis box.

Be very careful…