Help:Browser notes

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This page is intended to document known problems that users have encountered when using certain browsers to browse and edit OpenVistA Wiki. Some of these problems could be bugs in the MediaWiki software, while others may be bugs in a browser's behavior. Others might result from improper implementation of certain features on OpenVistA Wiki. If you find some bugs in your browser, please do not report them here, but instead report them to an administrator.

As a matter of course, we recommend that you use the most recent browser version available (that your platform supports). This means the latest (stable) builds of Mozilla, Internet Explorer 6, Opera 7, or Safari. This page is intended to address issues with modern browsers, meaning IE 5 and later, Mozilla/Netscape 6 and later, and Opera 6 and later.

Internet Explorer

• IE does not automatically refresh style sheets when a page is reloaded; you must empty the cache by pressing CTRL-F5, and then reload the page.
• All versions of IE have problems with text sizes, but should work fine with the default skin. Textboxes may be too wide on other skins, or font sizes may be illegible.

Gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Firefox, etc.)

• Mozilla
  • Mozilla 0.9.9 has problems saving forms (such as OpenVistA Wiki edits!) longer than about 10 KB; the connection stalls and the page is not saved. Use an older or newer version without the bug.

Opera

• Opera 6's internal memory sometimes cannot handle long pages (i.e. larger than 32 KB), and mangles the output.
• Opera 6 cannot handle auto-login between browser sessions.

KHTML-based browsers (Konqueror, Safari, etc.)

• Safari
  • Safari has a 60-second browser timeout, that may be shorter than the amount of time it takes for your edit to be acknowledged, especially if the server load at the time is high. You should not click the "save page" button a second time, because this repeats the edit and consumes additional disk space on the server. You may want to install SafariNoTimeout, a free extension that will increase the 60-second timeout to 10 minutes.
• OmniWeb
  • OmniWeb 4 occasionally hangs permanently (or crashes) when attempting to save a page.
  • OmniWeb 5 will sometimes forget the auto-login preference.

Other

• Ad blockers
  • Many ad blockers will block access to pages or images if they contain the string "ad" in them. (This is occasionally a problem when uploaded images are stored in the /ad/ directory, for example.) This problem has been reported in Opera (kiosk mode), Atguard, Norton Internet Security, and WebWasher.

See also

• Wikipedia: Browser notes - A collection of bug reports and general experiences for various browsers (plus some features listed), intended to help "choose" a browser with which to view Wikipedia.
• Browser issues with MediaWiki - A compilation of bug reports for MediaWiki sites.