Long threads on this website become very slow to display (as in locking up the browser for literally MINUTES). But the page displays finally DO complete if you're very patient, indicating it's not an infinite loop.
This is not a new problem, it's obvious to all and it's been discussed here before, with Microsoft's acknowledgement. But amazingly it has only been given minimal attention. Some forum updates have incrementally decreased the time to display long threads, but the problem remains, literally for years!
I believe it needs to be discussed further. It cannot be that Microsoft wants IE to work this badly on its own website. Certainly waiting for threads to display doesn't make our days any brighter.
Here's a fairly long thread you can try it on if you'd like to reproduce the problem for yourself:
Some observations:
- It takes MUCH longer (something like 10x longer) if you're logged-in than if you're logged out.
- Sometimes IE puts up a message that "Microsoft.com is not responding due to a long-running script". I've seen other browsers put up similar messages.
- Most times fairly quickly the page will partially render, but without the avatars, etc., then the avatars, points, etc. will fill in much later when the spinner stops, indicating the page display is done.
- Not every browser is equally slow, though all seem to be affected by whatevernear-infinite loop Microsoft has coded in the web script.
- The problem seems to be getting no better in the latest versions, even though they claim much faster script processing. It also seems worse on 64 bit OSs.
Observed logged-in times to display the thread at the link I provided above:
- Windows XP Pro, IE8:
Page initially went solid blank white.
27 seconds to display the page initially, coincident with a dialog: "A script is running slowly", "Stop this script"? I answered No.
64 seconds to display the avatars, names, points, etc.
- Windows Vista 32 bit, IE9:
2.6 seconds to display the page initially
32.4 seconds to display the avatars, names, points, etc.
- Windows Vista x64, IE9 (on a much less powerful workstation than the others here):
4.8 seconds to display the page initially
175.4 seconds to display the avatars, names, points, etc.
- Windows 7 32 bit, IE9:
3.2 seconds to display the page initially
31.0 seconds to display the avatars, names, points, etc.
- Windows 7 64 bit, IE9:
2.8 seconds to display the page initially
43.8 seconds to display the avatars, names, points, etc.
- Windows 7 64 bit, IE10 (RP):
2.6 seconds to display the page initially
59.4 seconds to display the avatars, names, points, etc.
- Windows 8 64 bit, IE10:
3.0 seconds to display the page initially
63.6 seconds to display the avatars, names, points, etc.
Since Microsoft doesn't seem to want to try to get to the bottom of this, how about we here have a go at figuring out what's happening using the various profiling and tracing tools? Wouldn't it be great to be able to browse here more quickly?
-Noel
Detailed how-to in my eBooks: | Configure The Windows 7 "To Work" Options |
