A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding

[edibobb]

I get the error "A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding" on Tiktok, Fidelity (positions page), sometimes CNN, and several other sites. First the browser locks up (all tabs) for about 20 seconds, and then the message pops up.

Is there a way to fix it? Is there some detailed information I can post that would be helpful? The problem does not occur on Firefox, Chrome, or Vivaldi. Restarting Pale Moon in safe mode doesn't help. It happens on two Windows 7 systems. Tiktok.com is the easiest to see the error -- just go to https://tiktok.com

This has happened intermittently for a year or two, but seems to have gotten worse (or maybe there's more weird javascript) recently. Fidelity.com is the big problem for me.

Unfortunately, I'll have to change browsers if I can't resolve this, and I would REALLY rather stay with Pale Moon.

[badnick]

Fidelity.com is the big problem for me.

At first look fidelity.com works fine for me. I don't have an acount so I can't log in.
Tiktok is already a known problem.

[Moonchild]

Forum rules
Please always mention the name/domain of the website in question in your topic title.

Just Do It.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

And one thread per site unless you know for a FACT that the underlying cause is the same.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Anyhow the message "A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding" may not depend on the browser, but on the hardware (and ultimately on the fact ther site is overloaded with complex scripts). I get that regularly on my bank site (not a leisure site) when connecting from home, and I never get that when connecting from work. Both with Palemoon ... but there is a factor 10 in memory between the two machines.

PS Clicking "continue" will slowly get to an end

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Well what this is is a watchdog that monitors scripts and if a script is simply taking too long to finish due to being ridiculously massive or eating massive amounts of memory or just stuck in a recursion loop it tries to interrupt and give the user a choice to either kill it or let it finish.

Think of it like how Windows has the dimming when something hasn't been responding for a while and it then gives you a choice to wait or continue.. Same shit. HELL a script could be misbehaving bad enough that it Windows dims the window before the watchdog can or does interrupt processing then the window undims and gives you that message.. Double watchdog action, suitable for PayPerView!

[edibobb]

I understand that. The problem is that the scripts are not working under Pale Moon, but it are fine with other browsers. Is Pale Moon interpreting the javascript differently?

[Moonchild]

It's not that simple, unfortunately. These massive blobs of javascript all try to do (often broken or only partial) detection of what they can or cannot use in the browser (which is subject to implementers but also users allowing or blocking specific APIs for various reasons) instead of using established and broadly-implemented (non-draft) specifications. When such scripting finds the specific feature set of Pale Moon (or other UXP browsers), the script itself can easily get confused and get into endless loops where one part says "use this" and the callee returns a failure ("I can't!") but the calling script is convinced it should be there so instructs the same thing again, etc.
That lack of error handling is not something we can help on the browser side of things, and it's even made very difficult for us to even analyze what is being the problem to point out to webmasters because the scripting is often obfuscated and at the very least minified (even though minification really doesn't save much in this era of using in-transit compression).
So it's not just that Pale Moon "interprets it differently"; very often we interpret it exactly the same -- but it only takes one gear not working in a complex "web application" for it to fully break down.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Hell another factor is that many sites and megalibs are wholesale disabling any real console output so one can't even figure out what KIND of error might be encountered.

[1210_bex]

I am having the same problem as edibobb at: https://www.fidelity.com/. Like him, I have two Windows 7 (Pro) computers. My desktop has 16 GB of RAM. As he noted, running in Safe mode does not help. The problem does not occur until you log in. So unless you have an account, you won't see the problem.

I have only noticed the problem in the last few weeks. I have a fiber optics connection. I checked just after I had the problem today, and the download speed was 720 Mb/sec.

The problem does not occur on Chrome or Firefox. Fidelity also runs OK on IE 11, although the error message does take a little longer to clear.

Moonchild said: "That lack of error handling is not something we can help on the browser side of things, and it's even made very difficult for us to even analyze what is being the problem to point out to webmasters because the scripting is often obfuscated and at the very least minified (even though minification really doesn't save much in this era of using in-transit compression)."

Sp what is our option? To use a browser other than Pale Moon to access Fidelity?


Harry

[adesh]

Sp what is our option? To use a browser other than Pale Moon to access Fidelity?

Complain to them, until they get tired hearing and fix their scripting.

[coffeebreak]

In another Fidelity thread from two months ago, someone posted that for him this problem came from Fidelity beta testing, and he was able to opt out from the test if he first logged in with a different browser.

Obviously not a permanent solution, but in addition to contacting Fidelity, you might check if the relevant page is still a beta test from which one can opt out.

[Tony0945]

@coffeebreak
Yep, that was me. I was about to search for the link. Thanks for saving me the trouble. The "button" is near the top on the right hand side of the position page. Use FF or whatever els3e you have to log in. Switch the button to the other position and you should be okay. Still having no problem. Last logged in there on Christmas Eve to do a Roth Conversion.

IIRC, they don't even support Windows! Must be oriented to android for the RobinHooders.

EDIT PM 28.16.0 I haven't updated yet.