boardreader-why can't I read links on this board?

Factual Questions
1

Example.http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9164731&postcount=329

I’m following that thread, and many posts have a link to a search on boardreader.com. I can’t access any of the posted links. Others can. What is enabled on my computer that keeps me from accessing that link?

Any ideas?

2

I am not sure what the question is.

You click on it and nothing happens? You might have a pop-up blocker. Try clicking on it while holding down the Ctrl key.

3

Help us out here…

What browser and OS?

What happens when you click the link?

If there’s an error message, what does it say? (post the exact text)

ETA:
There is a FusionChart Flash-based graph on there. Do you have Flash installed on your browser? What version is it? FusionCharts requires 8 (latest is 9). Can you load this page, which is an example of a similar chart on the FusionCharts site?

4

Windows XP, IE. And, yes, I can see that chart.

And, holding down the control key, I can now read the link to boardreader.

I never had an error message when I tried before. All I had was a blank page.

5

Er, then that worked for reasons completely unrelated to what I was thinking. Still, it works.

6

Mystifies me also.

I remember a week or more ago being able to read the link at boardreader. Nothing is different on my computer this week. It wouldn’t work today, but tonight it does. Weird.

7

That page (and most pages at boardreader.com) has a lot of data on it. Even if they’re doing their darndest to maximize load time, it could easily result in a timeout - especially if they’re designing their loading times around 2-3 people at a time pulling up a specific query and all of a sudden they are getting a dozen people accessing it from a link posted in a thread.

We use FusionCharts in one of our apps and that right there is pretty heavy - involves SQL, XML and Flash (yes, I know Flash is client-side). Plus they’re loading 3 charts at once so they’re available on-the-fly. So if SQL or XMLHTTP on their server is getting slammed at the moment, you’re going to get a long load time which may result in a timeout. And the timeout might not result in an error message - just a blank page.

Luck of the draw, I say. Bad timing on everyone’s part.

8

Thanks, Zipper. That makes the most sense to me.