Safari Issues?
Posted on October 5, 2007 Posted by John Scalzi 44 Comments
I’ve been getting reports that the site isn’t working particularly well on Safari. I’ve checked the site on my own Safari browser and it looks fine; however, that’s the Windows version (my Mac is still down for the count). Checking the stats for yesterday I had about 1.5k unique visits from people using Safari, but only two complaints, which makes me wonder (no offense, complainants) whether it’s to do with Safari itself or just some weird thing involving those folks. One thing against this is one of the folks noting the issue saw it over several different computers. The only thing other than that, that I can think of, is that maybe it has something to do with caching — i.e., an error happened when they first loaded the site, and it replicates due to Web caching.
In any event, if you’re looking at this site on Safari on the Mac, how does it look to you? Let me know.
Trivia: Safari browser users are about 5% of the viewers here (Firefox is by far and away the most popular, with about 60%, followed by IE at about 26%); Mac users are 13% of the audience, with Windows users about 80% and nearly all the rest using Linux (except for those 17 people who signed on yesterday using BSD and the 10 using SunOS. Shine on, you crazy diamonds!). This suggests that even among the MacHeads, Firefox is the browser of choice.
SunOS. That’s pretty hard core.
I actually was using FF on the Mac until a few months ago. . . can’t think of why I switched back to Safari, other than knee-jerk Apple zealotry, and the fact that FF’s interface is so un-Mac like. This may change with v.3, however, if the scuttlebutt on teh intarrwebz is to be believed.
This craziness with Safari and the Whatever had me download FF again. . . might just go back to the loving embrace of the orange fox.
I use Camino on Mac OS. Firefox is fine, but Camino seems to run a bit faster. Safari, though, is what I let other people use if they use my computer.
K
Using Safari on a Mac, and it looks just fine to me.
That’s because, compared to Firefox, Safari is Teh Suck.
Still, I typed out this comment on Safari 2 on a Mac, and it worked just fine.
Safari 2 and OS X 10.4.8. Nothing jumps out (or doesn’t jump out) at me when I’m browsing through.
Using Safari on a Mac as well with no issues. Never had any reason to switch from Safari.
Yes, erratic weirdness rampant here. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern, at least not one I’ve been able to pin down. It’s always on the permalinks/comments pages. Some appear as reported earlier in the week: all the text in this column crammed into roughly 40- to 80-pixels, leaving the rest blank. Yesterday and today I’m getting pages that are completely blank, but yesterday it was the page immediately preceding the newest post, today it’s the second and fourth back.
This is happening in Safari 2 on both a seven-year-old G4 tower and a 14-hour-old MacBook Pro, both running the latest update to OS X.
Dr. Hentosz’s diagnosis: acute whothehellknows. See you in Firefox!
My Mac is at home, so I can’t check Safari issues until later, perhaps this weekend. But I thought I’d confirm that, yes, this MacHead uses Firefox — on her Mac at home and on her PC at work. I haven’t used Safari in quite a while.
And with Firefox on both platforms my bookmark views are identical, which is convenient.
I’m using Safari on a Mac; so far so good.
I have a Mac and use Safari almost exclusively. I agree that clearing the cache may be what is needed. The site looks great and the new format is also very nice.
Safari on my Mac Mini, just fine. Glad you’re back.
Running Safari 3 beta on a PowerBook – no problems I’ve come across….
Works on my Safari / OSX / MacBook combo…
I saw it yesterday on my Mac (iBook G4) at home, using Safari. It was all fine.
I am astonished at the % of your users using Linux. Currently, I am running Feisty Fawn Ubuntu on an AMD-64 using firefox32, and almost never find anything on the web that doesn’t work for me. (I’ve loaded just about every proprietary codec, though.)
I use Firefox on Mac as a primary browser, but I have Safari Mac, Firefox Windows and IE windows as well, and checked across all of them. The Safari version doesn’t look or behave appreciably different from any of the others.
Aren’t blog stats fun? ;)
Hmmmmm. Safari 2.0.4 on a Mac (10.4.10), no problem. However, there is a site that causes Safari to go into Not Responding mode, and that is indeed ugly.
Firefox makes me itch, unfortunately.
Safari 3 beta on a G4 PowerBook — looks clean and smooth to me.
(For the stats: I love Safari and use it almost exclusively. Once in a blue moon there’ll be some site that I’ll have to call up FireFox for, but I’ve just never liked FF all that much so I’ve never been tempted to switch.)
Not Safari, but RSS. I have the old atom link that I’ve been using right along, which points to, “http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/atom.xml” but which worked just fine until now. Now, it points to a slightly older version of the site or to an older page at any rate.
So I did a re-scan to discover feeds, and the site presented me with one that points at “http://scalzi.com/whatever/?feed=rss2”, which is apparently (judging from the results) pointing at the right place.
Not sure what this means, but it may be an idea to recommend rediscovering and re-adding to make things work again.
Safari 3 beta and it works fine for me. I also thought you were still down because my RSS feed wasn’t showing any new posts. I decided to manually check the site yesterday and discovered you’d changed the forum software and the feed URL.
Keep in mind that I (and people like me) visit the site at work and at home, so some of those windows hits are Mac-heads.
Dumped cache from two machines here at work, restarted, still having the problem. It’s not every post (this one looks fine), but it is consistant on those pages that display wonky for me. I’ll try it at home (if and when I get there).
As you can see, Safari looks great on the Whatever… oh, you were talking about Safari on a real computer. Sorry, this is just Safari on an iPod Touch.
I propped the iTouch on the keyboard of the Fujitsu tablet — had to use the little plastic tray that comes in the iTouch box to hold the little thing, because it’s way too slippery to sit on the edge of the keyboard by itself. (grin) In case anyone cares…
Dr. Phil
Hmm… I put a URL for a picture in the previous comment and it didn’t appear.
Sorry.
Dr. Phil
Coming in on SunOS just to feel all hardcore. :) I’ve discovered that it loads faster than looking through XP when I haven’t rebooted XP in a while (which I often forget, because the only time SunOS needs rebooting is after a power outage). However, the Comments link is only one pixel tall – it takes some effort to reach them. At least in Mozilla (equivalent to Firefox more or less).
As for Macs, question for Steve: which pages are wonky? Maybe all the Safari users should be looking at those ones in particular…
On my home Mac I use Opera. The Mac version of Opera is much nicer than the Windows version for some reason, but then my XP setup is bizarre, so it’s probably just me.
Steve — how about posting *which* pages you’re having trouble with, so thems of us with Mac geek chops can take a look at them ourselves?
Chalk me up as another Mac Safari user who’s having no problems whatsoever.
I’ve always found Firefox a bit overrated. I mean, it’s all right, and I’m sure is far superior to IE on Windows, as IE and Windows have so many security issues they might as well have been designed by the federal government. But I don’t think web pages look better on it, or on anything, than on Safari. Why Microsoft can’t even get text smoothing right is a true puzzler.
I’m using Safari 1.3.2 (v312.6) on OSX 10.3.9 and while this page appears to be fine, the page behind the picture of BaconBookCat is coming up blank.
But it worked fine the other day.
Beats the heck outta me.
Jeff Porten, sure thing. Since multiple urls will throw us into moderation, this may take a while. Here’s a list of recent post titles I’m having problems with.
We’ve Got a Good Signal
Acquiescing to the Inevitable Requests (although this worked before I dumped the cache, go figure)
Ha! (also worked before)
Stross, Westerfield, and Preist
Yet Another Creation Museum Update
Various Book News
I’m All About the Plug-ins
Theme Changes (post goes about halfway across the column)
Welcome to October
On most of these pages I get a real thin column of text in the post column (full text of post, just only 15-45 pixels wide, text reflows), I can see the Reply box but not the “Submit” button. And the last couple, I don’t see anything in the post column. The widgets work fine on all the pages.
BTW, I’m at home and I cleared the cache and forced a reload. Still having the problem.
All right, I’m on a Mac, and I use both Firefox and Safari, and your blog looks great on both. No problems here!
SO GLAD you’re back, btw! And I’m loving the kitty pictures! :)
Lay off us Mac users. As a former journalist, you know we like our Macs.
:)
Safari works well for me; the current issue is my current wifi connection up here in the wilds of Wallowa Lake.
Looks okay to me.
Yes, two days ago, I saw the same weirdness as Jeff (7. above). It only happened on the Creation Museum comments page.
Now, since I’d only gone there to post “unbeliever’s” snark, I figured it was divine intervention. Humbled and in awe, I found Jesus that day.
Anyway, today is a new day and I’ve mislaid Jesus (much like your car keys). But guess what? The Creation comments page is healed! It’s a miracle! And I’m very confused. ;)
Safari 2.0.4, MacOSX 10.4.10 on a 2 GHz tactical MacBook.
Not only does the site look fine, it actually looks better on the MacBook than it does in IE on the Windows XP machine I use at work. (On the XP machine, there’s some font “fuzziness” – that’s the best way I can describe it.)
I’m seeing the same issues as Steve Buchheit (Safari 2.0.4, OS X 10.4.10, MacBook). It looks as though the post (with overflow:hidden set) thinks it’s much narrower than it should be. The headline just gets cut off since it’s floated, while the post text is a thin column that wraps in the space available. Some of the posts I’m getting a column about half the width it should be (these seem to be the ones with half-width images, so those might be setting the column width); some I get just a few pixels or none.
Its working for me, and I am running the mac version of Safari 2.0.40, and am working on OS 10.4.10, And I have never had any problems
Me and my big mouth. I posted my snark on the Creation Museum comments page and it’s broken again.
But it’s only broken on my Mac (Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) & OSX 10.4.10). My geeky iPod touch (Safari lite, or whatever) is fine. Strange thing is that the iPod *wasn’t* fine last week.
Very odd. Guess I’ll be dodging thunderbolts today ;)
Oooh. Just noticed the url of the broken page is: http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=13.
Not that I’m superstitious or anything, but it’s page 13 folks. Yes, thirteen.
Uh oh.
No issues on Safari 3 beta or the webkit nightly builds on intel 10.4.10, so it may be a safari 2 issue, if at all.
Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) on OSX 10.4.10. over here.
I’m thinking it’s related to the permalinks, as Jeff mentioned. . . I haven’t had issues with any newer pages, but all the ones that Steve listed earlier are still broken for me as well. It may well have been an error WP made when creating the static pages for those particular entries, and that only Safari 2.0.4 (419.3) picks up on? I don’t know, this stuff isn’t my area of expertise, could it be that specific a circumstance?
It’s not just the Whatever, by the way. I have the same problem with this post. That it’s using the same WordPress theme might be coincidence or might be a clue.
Jennifer Berk, yep, I’m also seeing the same problem with that page. Also I’m not having a problem with the recent pages either, Pablo.
Just thought I would throw a new set of stats at you and hit your site using my Nintendo DS. It uses a specialized version of the Opera browser, but it won’t list a screen resolution or an operating system. Take that, nicely organized statistics!