[thelist] Causes of IE6 Crashes

Lee Kowalkowski lee.kowalkowski at googlemail.com
Mon Jul 9 15:33:28 CDT 2007


On 09/07/07, Ken Snyder <kendsnyder at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a client testing a new beta version of our a browser-based
> application.  The client reports that the application will cause IE6 sp2
> to intermittently crash on any of their workstations.  The crashes don't
> seem to follow any pattern: some large pages crash and some small pages
> crash; some pages will crash three times in a row then work just fine.
>
> What types of HTML problems can cause IE6 to crash?  If I had to guess I
> would think HTML syntax errors or JavaScript memory leaks.  What is most
> likely the problem?  Is it more likely a problem with Windows or
> something else?

There are many methods posted on the Internet, but I think it may be
futile to systematically work through them to eliminate one by one.

First try using the application with CSS disabled.  Then JS disabled.
Then ActiveX (I used to have my IE in such a state that it crashed
whenever I browsed to a page which contained Flash, but this is
unlikely to affect all workstations unless they have all been
systematically corrupted).  Then images and sounds (if used).  If it
still crashes make sure the HTML is valid.

If you narrow it down to CSS/JS/HTML you can do a binary search
elimination, quite easily with HTML/CSS, a little trickier with JS -
basically comment out half the code and retest, repeat ad nauseam,
re-introducing as necessary.

It's also worth checking IE says the SSL certificate is fine, if HTTPS
is used.  We've also had issues with users that are both not logged in
properly (but using 'run as', particularly when neither are an
administrator - IE didn't crash though, it just wasn't allowed to open
new windows).

E.g. <input type foo> will crash IE - however you get a very specific
and traceable error, I assume you just get a window saying "Internet
Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close".

You can also play with lots of the settings (really a last resort
now), prompt is a good start.

So, have you managed to rule anything out yet?

-- 
Lee



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