the Mozilla skewed layout problem

Daxim on 14/6/2002 at 05:34

There's a thread in commchat that talks about a display problem in Moz. Collected information + my observations:* It occurs in versions 1RC2 to 1.0, maybe earlier.
* It occurs on the ttlg main page and on the forum reply page. I observed it myself only on the reply page.
* It is not deterministic reproducable. Most of the time, the reply page is just fine.
* Reloading once seems to fix the problem for others, I had to reload or go back and forth many times to make it go away.
* The problem manifests itself thus:
- the ad banner is missing
- the following table layout is broken, content will be skewed to the right
- on the reply page, the submit button will have no effect
* Even when prohibiting image manipulation per Javascript in the moz options, I got the problem.
* I saved the source of a broken reply page, reloaded, and saved the source of the correct reply page. They are identical.
- Tangent: Opera and Moz get a slightly different source in regard to the textarea columns. Why?
* I noticed that the ad inserting Javascript is not the same as in January. When was it changed?I am reluctant to blame the fault on Moz, since the ad Javascript is syntactically broken. Furthermore there is no entry in Bugzilla that fits these symptoms. Put all this together, I have no idea what it causes.

David on 14/6/2002 at 05:37

Yes, the advertising code was changed.
Yes, we are in contact with cyberbeeps about it.

Do the daughter sites display correctly? As they use the same adcode.

Daxim on 14/6/2002 at 20:43

Yep, got it on deusex-machina now, too. I have to correct my point 6: when completely disabling JS (like Luthien did), then the problem indeed vanishes. (Background: the ad is inserted with document.write, not by image manipulation. My baka.)

So it is the ads fault, then. What do the cybereps people say?

Daxim on 14/6/2002 at 21:24

I'm confident I'm on the trace of the cause. When I looked at the ad JS with syntax highlighting, I got this:
<hr>
<tt>

<script language="JavaScript">

 ');

 document.write('</SCR');

 document.write('IPT>');



 document.write('<SCR');

 document.write('IPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1">');

 document.write('_version=11; //-->');

 document.write('</SCR');

 document.write('IPT>');



 document.write('<SCR');

 document.write('IPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">');



 if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf('MSIE 3') != -1){

 document.write('<IFRAME MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDERCOLOR="#000000" SRC="oascentral.cybereps.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_sx.ads/' + page + random + target + '"></IFRAME>');

 }

 else if (_version < 11) {

 document.write ('<A HREF="(http://oascentral.cybereps.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/)' + page + random + target + '"><IMG SRC="(http://oascentral.cybereps.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/)' + page + random + target + '"></a>');

 }



 document.write('</SCR');

 document.write('IPT>');



 // End Hide -->

</script>

</tt>
<hr>
Okay, do you see how the HTML comment within the JS is suddenly disrupted in my text editor? I believe the same throws Moz out of the curve. So this piece of corrected code should fix the problem. Changes: added type attribute to the script element (it is required!), removed the HTML comments within the JS, fixed the 14 syntax errors (<tt></</tt> must always be escaped to <tt><\/</tt>).
<hr>
<tt>

<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">

 var random = new Number(Math.floor(9999999 * Math.random())+1);



 // Modify to reflect site specifics

 page = "ttlg.com/";

 target = "@Top1,x02,x05,x08!Top1";



 document.write('<SCR');

 document.write('IPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1" SRC="http://oascentral.cybereps.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/' + page + 1 + random + target + '">');

 document.write('<\/SCR');

 document.write('IPT>');



 document.write('<SCR');

 document.write('IPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">');

 document.write('_version=10; //-->');

 document.write('<\/SCR');

 document.write('IPT>');



 document.write('<SCR');

 document.write('IPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.1">');

 document.write('_version=11; //-->');

 document.write('<\/SCR');

 document.write('IPT>');



 document.write('<SCR');

 document.write('IPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">');



 if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf('MSIE 3') != -1){

 document.write('<IFRAME MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDERCOLOR="#000000" SRC="oascentral.cybereps.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_sx.ads/' + page + random + target + '"><\/IFRAME>');

 }

 else if (_version < 11) {

 document.write ('<A HREF="http://oascentral.cybereps.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/' + page + random + target + '"><IMG SRC="http://oascentral.cybereps.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_nx.ads/' + page + random + target + '"><\/a>');

 }



 document.write('<\/SCR');

 document.write('IPT>');

</script>



</tt>

Saam on 17/6/2002 at 14:50

Daxim, could you be kind enough to email me the new ad code in a .txt file, so I can easily replace the current code?

Many thanks for your help.

MsLedd on 17/6/2002 at 23:03

I got it Saam... changed the code :)

Daxim (or anyone else with Mozilla) can you please tell me if it's changed (hopefully for the better)?

Turtle on 18/6/2002 at 01:22

I have experienced (and am experiencing ) the same problems with Netscape 6.2.1.

Occasional missing headers, inability to post when Javascript is enabled, and inability to use VB code buttons.

When Javascript is disabled, I can post, but still no, VB buttons.

I have no problems with posting or viewing using Opera 6.0 with JRE.

:shrug:

Daxim on 18/6/2002 at 01:47

(http://daxim.ath.cx/load/deusexmachinaskew.png) (189 kB)
(http://daxim.ath.cx/load/ttlgreplyskew.png) (73 kB)

MsLedd on 18/6/2002 at 03:26

Well there's your problem Dax... all that GERMAN on your PC, clearly it's confused.

ohh relax, I'm just playing with you :)

Okay now I only entered the code you provided into the Forums headers, not any of the other TTLG sites pages. So I'd imagine that DX looks exactly as it did before...

Any other ideas?

oh and, should I put the code back as it was...? I mean is this worse now?

Daxim on 18/6/2002 at 08:23

No, keep the new JS code. It has no errors, whereas the old one has. So this is equal, if not better.

I'm currently trying to develop a (http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/bugathon.html#testcase) test case with help from Moz developers that were friendly enough to divert a bit of their time to this problem. I keep you informed.