# What are you supposed to do with IE "Random Error" thing?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-supposed-to-do-with-ie-random-error-thing/268202>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 8, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-supposed-to-do-with-ie-random-error-thing/268202 "2004-10-08T15:05:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-supposed-to-do-with-ie-random-error-thing/268202/1 "2004-10-08T15:05:19Z")

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I don’t get it. You’ll go to a website and suddenly you hear a _boonh!_. IE tells you that there is a “Random Error,” and would you like to debug?

If you hit “Yes” you are then given a page full of code and other garbage. What are you supposed to do with this? _Hello_, I’m fixin’ yer website!. _Hello there!_

If you hit “No,” the sound and message repeat a few times, but I have never actually been prevented thereby from viewing the page I wanted to see.

So, for fuxsaxe, what’s this thing for? As my guess is that no one EVER uses the debug option, why not just skip the whole message and go right to the page? Ridiculous.

Explanations, please. Oh yes, and when can we have our popup blocker for IE? (I normally use Safari, a much superior product.)

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**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-supposed-to-do-with-ie-random-error-thing/268202/2 "2004-10-08T15:13:23Z")

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Someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you’re only getting the debug option because you have Microsoft Visual Studio installed.

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**Author:** ![Mycroft\_Holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a5b964/32.png) [@Mycroft\_Holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mycroft_Holmes)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-supposed-to-do-with-ie-random-error-thing/268202/3 "2004-10-08T15:17:58Z")

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> [@Aeschines](#):
>
> Oh yes, and when can we have our popup blocker for IE? (I normally use Safari, a much superior product.)

Don’t know about the first part of your question, but for a popup blocker you can use the [Google toolbar](http://toolbar.google.com/) or something like [Maxthon](http://www.maxthon.com/en/index.htm) (formerly MyIE2), or install Service Pack 2, if you’re using Windows XP. The smartest thing to do though, would be to use [Firefox](http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) as your browser.

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**Author:** ![LateComer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5ac83/32.png) [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-supposed-to-do-with-ie-random-error-thing/268202/4 "2004-10-08T15:18:12Z")

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In Internet Explorer.  
Go to tools-internet options.  
Go to advanced tab.  
Check “Disable script debugging.”  
Make sure “display a notification about every script error” is not checked.

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**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2004, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-supposed-to-do-with-ie-random-error-thing/268202/5 "2004-10-08T15:26:50Z")

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This is meant only for the people who actually wrote the website. (Sometimes it’s too indecipherable to even help THEM, lol.)