I just took SiteMeter off of the blog. Read on..
From Wired.com
A number of web sites that use SiteMeter tracking code to monitor the number of visitors to their site are reporting that the code is causing Internet Explorer browsers to crash when users visit their sites.
I haven’t spent time testing a lot of sites, but the Gawker Media sites all seem to be affected. These include Gawker, Valleywag, Gizmodo and Lifehacker, among others.
The problem appears to be affecting IE 5.5, 6.0 and 7.0. Internet surfers using IE to access a site that has SiteMeter tracking it receive a message saying the site cannot be loaded and “operation aborted.” The issue seems to have begun late afternoon Friday.
SiteMeter has not responded to a request for comment and so far has posted no announcement to its web site addressing the issue. But SiteMeter’s blog has a few posts published earlier this week referencing its move to a new platform and changes to its tracking code.
A number of sites are reporting that once they remove the SiteMeter code, the problem disappears and their page loads fine in IE.
IMHO, Sitemeter doesn’t add much value to a blog other than the referrer pages where you can see who’s visiting. Beyond that it mostly serves the ego of the author. Same for other statistical programs. They’re all off until I discuss alternatives with my geeks.
Ah, just found this in case you’re having trouble with other sites and a possible fix for your own blog:
To fix click on the menu Tools -> Internet Options. Click on the tab Security. Click on the icon Restricted Sites. Click on the button Sites. Type the text ‘*.sitemeter.com’ (without quotes). Click the Add button.
That will fix the problem on the client side.
Technically this is not a IE7 bug, but rather a problem on the server side. There is an embedded a tag for <SCRIPT HREF=â€http://foo.sitemeter.com/foo.js†> inside a block element (such as <TABLE>). That’s a no-no per the standard and results in undefined behavior. In this case when the IE7 sends the TCP SYN packet to fetch the .js script, sitemeter.com is responding with TCP RST packet to abort, and IE7’s renderer bails out of the table format sequence. Ka-blooey.
To fix on the server side you need to move the script tag down to the bottom of the HTML, just before the </BODY> tag.
AWB
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First, let me point out that I know nothing about the inner workings of computers or blogs and I don’t know if this will be helpful for you in determining what the problem was yesterday with viewing your blog.
Yesterday I received the error “can’t load the site, opertation aborted”. Your blog appeared on my screen then a window popped up with that message. I had to click “ok”. Once that was done the screen switch to a page that said the page could not be loaded.
I had the same problem with Fort Wayne Observed, Jeff Pruitt’s blog, Disenfranchised American, The PA-IN Erudition and What’s Going Down(town).
Today I’m not having any problem with viewing these blogs and I haven’t changed anything on my computer.
I have had the problem for several days with several computers with several blogs. Thanks for checking into this!
Of course, internet users could convert to the Firefox 3 browser which also avoids having to look at the ads on your site.
I use IE7 Pro, and it eliminates ads. You could turn it off and click a few now and then
Firefox 3 Beta 4 leaves IE-7 in the dust on loading speed, both at log in and also in finding and loading sites. I am told that it has something to do with memory management and the much smaller program kernel.
I found that IE-7 was constantly telling me that something went wrong and a reload was required. On the much fewer occasions of getting knocked off of Firefox, I was pleased to find that the reload allowed me to got back to where I was before.
You have to get used to Firefox’s tab orientation rather than the back button but that doesn’t take long. Mozilla’s open architecture has resulted in many useful add-ons …particularly Adblock Plus (which does turn on and off).
Dan:
You didn’t happen to read the (cheap) “fix” I stuck on my blog Saturday morning by any chance…did you?
It was sitemeter’s fault completely.
BTW – gadfly’s correct-having FIREFOX negates the initial problem totally.
B.G.
( the cut ‘n paste “king”)