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Topic: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04 (Read 9552 times) previous topic - next topic

Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Are you using the Netscape 4.04 browser. If so, you may recently experienced browser crashes when surfing our site. A bug in the Netscape browser is the cause of this problem. The bug seems to be in all platform versions of Netscape 4.04 (Unix and Windows). We are in the process of modifying our site in such a way as it will be loadable by users of Netscape 4.04.

For thos of you who understand HTML, the following short HTML source demonstrates the Netscape 4.04 bug.

-----------------------------------
<html>
<head><title>Netscape 4.04 Bug</title></head>
<body>
<table>
<tr><td style="padding-left: 20px" valign="top">
<p>This simple page causes the Netscape 4.04 browser to crash.</p>
<blockquote>
<table><tr><td>Item</td></tr></table>
</blockquote>
</td></tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
-----------------------------------

If you are developing web pages, you might want to be careful with the combination of:

- a table with left side padding, combined with
- a blockquote, combined with
- an interior table

These elements, used together, appear to be the cause of a Netscape 4.04 crash.

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #1 –
Wow!! You don't waste any time, do you! Thanks for replying so quickly. I actually notified Netscape of the crashing last week, but had no reply. I dare say things will start moving now the bug has been identified. I'm (honestly and sincerely and I'm not just saying this to get brownie points) most impressed at your committment and skills. Fantastic!
Peter.

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #2 –
We have also reported the problem to Netscape. Our site has now been fully updated. Netscape 4.04 will not fall over when loading our pages, as of today.

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #3 –
That's what I call service! Many thanks.

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #4 –
I have a version of Netscape version 4.02 and just to see what, if anything, happens, I went to your http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/netscape-bug.htm page . Guess what - it crashed as well.

Were you aware of this ? I don't remember getting this problem before but then usually with software crashes I usually just assume a glitch and restart.

Probably no further action needed but any comment ?

Richard

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #5 –
We are aware of the fact that earlier editions of Netscape 4 (prior to 4.04) also have this bug. This does not, however, change the facts as described in this thread. We reported the bug to Netscape, we changed our site to compensate for the bug, and we isolated a very precise test case that illustrates the bug, should Netscape wish to fix it. Any further action is really up to Netscape...

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #6 –
Richard,

NW's website was "prettied up" recently, and it may have only been then that the Netscape bug came to surface.

A

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #7 –
Yes, that is exactly right. We updated our site about 10 days ago. We started getting an unusual number of complaints, and finally determined that Netscape 4 was crashing on some of our pages. Until this happened, we only tested with an earlier Netscape version, which did not have this bug. We now test with version 4 as well (live and learn).

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #8 –
Yeah. So much for standards. The pages I'm writing now need variations for non-scripting, NetScape and IE4.0. Phew!
To satisfy EVERYONE, you need text-only (well, okay, you CAN have pix), non-framed, no scripts, no applets/plug-ins/ActiveX. Doesn't leave much, does it?

A

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #9 –
I seem to get the impression lately that there will soon
be two webs, one for Netscape and one for I.E. It also seems
each browser 'update' has more and more bugs. The whole web
is starting to remind me of a garbage dump, 'bugs' and all!
A nice little dumping ground for useless bits of misinformed
junk. (Except for the Noteworthy site, of course!:-)

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #10 –
Nice going, people! I wasn't aware of that kind of bug before visiting this site. It crashed my NS 4.03, too :-/

The Internet will soon be split up to several parts, which won't be compatible.

I have noticed this with my website. I had a news-ticker Java-applet put up, everything worked fine, it was nice. Then someone mailed me about how his IE4.0 crashed everytime he goes to my site. The reason was the Java-applet.

This is strange, as Java *should* be platform-free, and work in every browser.

Now Microsoft has been forced to take the "Java compatible" logo away from its products by Sun Microsystems, as they claim they are not Java-compatible anymore. Microsoft also begins to use its own libraries in J++, so bye bye Java, it seems.

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #11 –
Netscape 4.04 crashed all the time for me. It is a piece
of junk. About every 4 minutes it would crash. I downloaded
4.05 and it is a little better, but it still crashes a lot.

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #12 –
With the version 3 it works fine... It's often dangerous to use the last version of a program. It converts you a beta-tester when you were a user...
(Note : there is NO Microsoft software users. All are beta-testers, but they're not aware of this)

By the way, each and every new version of a piece of software corrects some old bugs, adds new ones (especially (and logically in a certain way) for new functionalities)), and takes longer to load.

NWC excepted... :-) (Reason : they seem to do REAL testing (including beta-, remember 1.50beta) and they add functionalities asked by users...

Enjoy NWC !

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #13 –
Little late in this thread, but guess what? Using Netscape version 6.2 and this bug is STILL there... and believe me, this one was hard to figure out! After hours of practically throwing my hands up, I finally thought 'could it be the blockquotes?'...sure enough, I remove the blockquotes and the problem goes away.
People like to rant against Microsoft and IE, but this kind of bug is unacceptable and should've been addressed a long time ago.

</brett>

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #14 –
fwiw - the problem is gone in V4.7. (I snipped NoteWorthy's little sample and viewed it, no crash.)

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #15 –
Maybe it's true for V4.7 on Windows. But I have V4.7 on AIX, and it still crashes.

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #16 –
I have Netscape 4.7 on NT workstation and it still crashes. No wonder Netscape is down to a 10% market share of the browser market!

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #17 –
Same bug (crash with NULL pointer execption what a shame !) with :

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Test2</title>
</head>
<body>
<div style="position:absolute; border:none">
<table border="0">
<tr>
      <td>
<table border="0">
         <tr>
            <td>
               Die Netscape !
            </td>
         </tr>
</table>
      </td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>

No comment ...

Re: Bug in Netscape Version 4.04

Reply #18 –
Thanks Nicholas for the very helpful information. I've discovered that the real problem in your example is the border style in the DIV.

Both of the following work fine in 4.04:

<div style="position:absolute;">
<table border="0">
<tr>
<td><table border="0">
   <tr>
   <td>Netscape 4.04 dies because of tables inside a div with border</td>
   </tr>
   </table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>

<div style="position:absolute; top: 80px; border: 1px solid #FF0000">
Plain text in a div with border seems okay in 4.04.
</div>

However, add border: 1px solid #0000 to the style of the div that wraps a table above (or use border: none or whatever) and Boom! Netscape 4.04 (and 4.05) will crash.

Additional testing revealed that Netscape 4.70 had memory leaks that would eventually cause a crash after hitting pages that have tables inside divs with border. 4.72 and above do not seem to have this instability.

The crash in the original example on this page is similar. The padding-left forces Netscape to create a positioned layer. This positioned layer (the equivalent of a div) contains a table and caused the crash. Removing the padding-left fixes the crash.

I've kept Netscape 4.04 around because I've always been amused to use a web browser with the number 404. :-)

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