Why, on some sites–curse their very existence–do I come to a page where all I get is a blank, and the cursor spinning endlessly. If I have the patience, I wait it out, but it can last for minutes on end. Then, as if in a miracle, the page loads. But I rarely have the patience, and force-quit Internet Explorer, which doesn’t do much for the System stability.
I thought it had something to do with Java Applets, but when those thrice-accursed creatures make their appearance there’s usually a (dreaded) little message at the bottom of my window saying “Applet Loading.” This does not happen in the “endless cursor (curser?)” case.
This is extremely annoying. I would understand if I was on a 56K, but I have an extremely fast cable modem and I just don’t care how big the page is–it should load within seconds, not minutes. And that damned spinning cursor won’t let me do anything else–refresh, close window, click on desktop etc.
How can I avoid these pages?
PS if I thought it mattered, I’m on a Macintosh. But I think this probably affects Windows users as well. After all, it is Microsoft.
I have the same problem on some sites, and I’m on DSL. I think it’s more a server-side issue than anything else. If a webserver is overloaded with high traffic, it can take a while for the page to load. It even happens here, on occassion. Damn hamsters.
Well, this happens to me, especially with certain websites, like CNN.com during the middle of the business day–the header of the page will load, and the rest of it just hangs. Snopes will also do this, too, quite frequently. I blame the server in both cases.
Ironically, when I clicked on this thread, the IE thing spun mindlessly, futilely, for at least 5 or 6 minuted before the page loaded. Wouldn’t you know?
I’ve been noticing another hangup with it. Sometimes when a page is slow to load, you can just quit by clicking the Stop button. It stops spinning. Then you can use the Back button, try a different URL, try to reload, or just close the browser window.
But when you have more than one IE window open, and the mindless spinning thing starts in one, you can’t use the Stop button in any other window until you close out the bad one. It exerts its demonic influence into the other IE windows and won’t let them stop spinning either.
It isn’t just a server-side problem, then. When I’m trying to access 2 different servers at once, and the spinning IE in one window interferes with the action in another window, I would say that’s an IE bug there.
Ironically, when I clicked on this thread, the IE thing spun mindlessly, futilely, for at least 5 or 6 minutes before the page loaded. Wouldn’t you know?
I’ve been noticing another hangup with it. Sometimes when a page is slow to load, you can just quit by clicking the Stop button. It stops spinning. Then you can use the Back button, try a different URL, try to reload, or just close the browser window.
But when you have more than one IE window open, and the mindless spinning thing starts in one, you can’t use the Stop button in any other window until you close out the bad one. It exerts its demonic influence into the other IE windows and won’t let them stop spinning either.
It isn’t just a server-side problem, then. When I’m trying to access 2 different servers at once, and the spinning IE in one window interferes with the action in another window, I would say that’s an IE bug there.