Tech: A new problem-script error

Subject: Tech: A new problem
From: kendall
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 07:59 PM

I took my computer to the clinic, got it back yesterday and it worked ok for a while, but now I get an error message:

IE SCRIPT ERROR
A YELLOW TRIANGLE WITH AN EXCLAMATION MARK IN IT.
An error has occured in the script on this page
line 58
Char: 9
error 'top.date Format' is null or not an object.
code 0
url MHTML:mid://000000 14/

Do you want to continue running scripts on this page?

YES   NO


Should I take it back, or can someone explain this?

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 08:07 PM

It's fucked up, Kendall.

Seriously, whatever page you were trying to look at appears to have been fucked up. Or maybe it was you. Were you fucked up? If you weren't, maybe that was the problem. What page were you trying to look at?

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 08:12 PM

Ohmygawd........Kendall, your tech has installed a fatal virus in your computer known as the "Whuppage Worm." More of a worm than a true virus , it can ravage your files and send your entire computer to the scrap heap!

My advice is to click on the "Yes" and go on. The damage is already done. Or you can click "No" and skip the page entirely, but again the yellow triangle says it's over for your computer.

Sorry!

Spaw (who has gotten that message a hundred times over the years with no ill effects)

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: Jeri
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 08:14 PM

Yeah, I'd go with 'yes', too.
I say it SO infrequentlty in Real Life...

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: Cluin
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 08:17 PM

Those kinds of errors occur quite frequently on the porno sites, I hear.



BUSSSSSSSSSSS-ted!

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 08:39 PM

Well damn Cluin! I should have known that. I get it most on one of my favorite necrophilia sites, http://www.bendoverbeethoven.org

Spaw

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 08:40 PM

Okay, how many of you perverts actually tried to click on that NON-link?

LOL....Yeah, I thought so.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 08:52 PM

At a guess, you've got Script Debugging turned on in IE. Tools/Options somewhere I guess to turn it off.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: Cluin
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 08:57 PM

Quick fix that might work... in IE, go to Tools > Internet options > Advanced tab. Click the "Restore Defaults" button.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: kendall
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 09:24 PM

Done the debugger was chacked

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: Cluin
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 09:28 PM

Baby's on the half-tip.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: kendall
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 09:45 PM

Thanks for the help.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 11:30 PM

Spaw, you bastard. I didn't click but I didn't quite get the joke right off, either.

~S~

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Jan 07 - 11:35 PM

LOL.....Hey Wyzzz, Kendall clicked, he just ain't admittin' to it!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 12:11 AM

...I took my computer to the clinic, got it back yesterday...

They probably used a piece of your ear to fix it.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 03:51 AM

This error occurs very commonly if you email a web page to yourself and then open it in your email program. It usually means part of the stylesheet and/or the header script for the page didn't come across in the emailing. It can also mean that the script inserts "tailored content" based on your cookie for that site, since your browser can look at the cookie while you're connected to the site, but your email program probably can't (or won't) when you're not hooked to the site.

When you run into it on a web page with your browser, it usually means you've just hit a page built by an amateur, or one by an expert who expects everybody to have "the latest" in supermultimediabroadband3dacceleratedgraphicspolyphonicsurroundsound equipment, including something you don't have or don't allow.

While it could mean that the website is using illegal scripting (usually Java or XML) your AV program should give you a different warning in that case. If you trust the site (after considering whether you should trust the site) it usually is safe enough to click and continue, although you may not get all the "features" the idiots operators running the site intended.

The primary rule in cases of this sort, admittedly extremely difficult for some to comprehend and follow is:

        DON'T BE STUPID! (on purpose)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 05:12 AM

If the errors are coming from Microsoft Script Debugger which IIRC is/was an "extra", I think you might as well switch it off.

All it is going to tell you is it has encountered an error (which is not the same thing as finding malicious code), its output is going to me meaningless to most people, and even those who understand the error are not going to be able to correct the faulty script.

It would of course be a handy tool for those creating the web pages...

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 07:05 AM

I didn't get that Script Debugger was in use, although we never know about Kendall.

IE, both IE6 and IE7 at least, will pop up that warning fairly often on some websites. I assume other browsers also would. I've also seen it in Outlook Express. It seems to happen most often with sites that have a lot of "linked in" content on the page, and if any of the links (internal or external to the site) doesn't come across with the right stuff you get a "script error."

In the few cases (very few) where I've actually looked at source code to check the line where the error happened, it's usually been an advertisement in a sidebar that didn't come up. Since those ads are often supplied from external sites - other than the one you're connected to - it's not surprising that occasionally one doesn't get served up.

There are sites where I probably would close out, but I'm not adventurous enough to be places where I get that nervous very often.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 07:28 AM

Thanks for finding my invisible link - I'll learn to preview every time one day...

With Firefox, I get a little "i" in a circle that sometimes turns red if there is a script error. Clicking it opens a JavaScript console. I can't remember if this is part of a standard Windows (it is on my version of linux) Firefox 1.5 install or whether, like the DOM inspector, I had to do something like a "custom install" to get it. (And yes, once in a blue moon, I've needed these things).

--
Like you, I try to avoid sites that make me nervous.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: kendall
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 09:20 AM

The problem seems to have gone away. Thanks again.

I paid the man to save everything on my hard drive, and I guess he did, mostly, but he wiped out my free popup blocker.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 12:51 PM

The web page coder was probably a bit of a bugger?

Quack!!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 03:23 PM

My husband works at an engineering firm where computers are, of course, ubiquitous. The advice of their systems group is simply to say "No" whenever you are asked "Do you want to continue running scripts on this page?."

I've been doing that for several years without ill effects. To this date I don't even know what scripts are.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 03:51 PM

Spaw,

I would've clicked on your link but I was using the PageDown key to scroll and both posts appeared at the same time.

You need to work on your timing.

Russ

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 04:12 PM

Jon -

I always preview - - except when I've actually made a really stupid mistake.

Your little slip was a bit puzzling. I expected to see the usual </i> in place of </a>. You had the right turnoff tag, but displaced a little into the display text where it had the effect of a missing " (no terminator for a literal string(?) I think).

leenia -

That's probably the advice I'd give to a large group where:

1. It's impossible to discuss individually with all of them what the limits of good practice are. (Or to trust the ones who need to always to ask.)

2. I'm the one who gets to set up all the machines so I know what they are and what's on them.

3. I'm good buddies with the guy who bought 'em and who sets the rules on what they're for.

Depending on how large a firm it is, they quite likely limit what sites employees are expected to visit, and have some leverage to make a site clean up errors, if it's one that their employees need to contact.

The sites where I see it, and where I've found it okay to proceed, are not ones I'd be likely to be visiting on company time - largely because they're ones with enormous amounts of advertising inserts.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem-script error
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 04:15 PM

I never use a third party pop-up blocker. Just use the one in IE and I 'm almost never troubled by pop-ups.

Though I do use the "Immunize" feature in Spybot S&D and update it regularly, whether that has any effect or not.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem-script error
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 09:43 AM

Thanks, John. I surmise that scripts are used mostly to put pop-ups on my screen. I won't miss them.

If they are used to put elements that jiggle, flash or crawl, I won't miss them either.

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem-script error
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 12:12 PM

The stuff that can be in a script can be lots of different kinds of "content." Many pages may have a "frame" where an ad is inserted, but the ad comes from somebody else's website, or from a different part of the site you're visiting. A common kind of script error will just "not display" something that was intended to be part of the page. You may see it as a picture that just shows the little "boxed x" place marker instead of the image that was intended.

It doesn't often seem to be the flashy jiggly stuff, since someone pays them to get that crap up and they're very fussy about it working. You have to rely on your popup blocker and other security/convenience filters to keep that kind of crud under control.

A script error usually just means that you get less information than the page was supposed to contain, rather than more. If it's a page you would have looked at if the error didn't happen, it usually is no big risk to look at what's left of it when an error happens.

If you find a site where it happens frequently, it could mean that the operator isn't paying attention and the risk of "bad stuff" (i.e. the site being "hacked") might be higher than on a well-run site, so you might choose to go there less often ...

John

Subject: RE: Tech: A new problem-script error
From: Cluin
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 12:34 PM

I pretty much ignore all script errors. Sometimes it is due to my settings, but sometimes it is just bad script. Either way, it's no big deal.