Shadowbox renders entire site unusable in IE8

[a-terrestrial]

My searches for a similar problem were unsuccessful.

Shadowbox works perfectly in all browsers except the latest IE8. Well, it would be better said that only in IE8 does Shadowbox appear to negatively affect site usage. Navigating to any page where the Shadowbox css and js files are linked yields an unpredictable page load. The page may load partially or not at all. Sometimes it cuts off the top and/or bottom of the background whereby clicking the background loads or fills the unloaded space. Sometimes, half or less of the content loads. I say again, unpredictable. However, if continuously refreshed, the page will eventually successfully load all elements with no errors. When an error occurs, this is always it:

Message: HTML Parsing Error: Unable to modify the parent container element before the child element is closed (KB927917)
Line: 0
Char: 0
Code: 0
URI: http://www.montanatribes.org/main.php?page=intro

As long as content loads properly, any Shadowbox link will work fine. So Shadowbox itself is not broken. I've checked the DOCTYPE and tried switching from Transitional to Strict and that hasn't effected anything.

Here is the website utilizing Shadowbox: http://montanatribes.org/. The Digital Archives is the main section that uses Shadowbox. However, Shadowbox appears to be affecting the Splash page as well. If you go to the Digital Archives in IE8 and continuously refresh, you should experience what I have described.

I would greatly appreciate help as this site used by teachers at schools and like every educational institute, they use solely IE8, the most problematic browser.

Many thanks,
a-terrestrial

[ViPeRIII]

Well if i look at your code, you include shadowbox, but you aint pointing any link to it...
Try
replace:
<td>

</td>
<td>

</td>


with:
<td>

</td>
<td>

</td>


and try agin...

[ViPeRIII]

sorry, messed up the links..
another try:


<a rel="shadowbox[Mixed]" href="
for your links in stead of only <a href="

thats when you trigger shadowbox

[a-terrestrial]

Thank you for your reply.

Okay, let's use this page as our test. There is only one link that points to Shadowbox and that's the "Click here for video introduction to this website" link. This links to a Quicktime clip.

As on the originally posted "Digital Archives" page, this link correctly points to shadowbox with rel="shadowbox". Unfortunately, adding [Mixed] has not stopped this page from acting berserk in IE8.

Tell me, did you experience anything like what I described while viewing the page in IE8? Did you refresh several times to test it?

[petemitch]

It happened the first time I loaded your test page but then worked fine on subsequent reloads.  The Microsoft knowledge base article relating to the issue is here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927917, but since it says it's not a problem in IE8 that might not be much use.  The only thing I can suggest is getting your page to validate and see if the problem still happens.

Regards, Peter.

[a-terrestrial]

Markup Validated down to 1 error which I find acceptable. Same page loading problems occurring on our test page.

The problem is only prevalent when the page points to shadowbox code. I performed a few tests to prove this.

When commenting out either shadobox.js

OR this section:

<script type="text/javascript">
Shadowbox.init({
    language:   "en",
    players:    ["qt"]
});
</script>

the frequency at which the page fails to load substantially decreases but is still prevalent. When all of the shadowbox code is commented out:

<!--<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="shadowbox.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="shadowbox.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
Shadowbox.init({
    language:   "en",
    players:    ["qt"]
});
</script>-->

The problem disappears completely and the page loads normally. Something in the shadowbox code is preventing IE8 from working properly.

[a-terrestrial]

I am continuously moving through the forums and am curious as to how I have not found a user suffering from a similar problem to mine.

I will say that the method described here where you emulate IE8 as IE7 does prevent my site from being dysfunctional and erratic but I don't like it. Should I adopt the IE7 emulation method I will have to some css modifications that I'd rather avoid by discovering what it is about SB that completely prevents the site from functioning.

All suggestions appreciated.

[a-terrestrial]

I was wrong.

Emulating as IE7 does not eliminate the problem. Site loading is still random.

[petemitch]

Was just about to suggest you try taking out <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" /> but it looks like you just did, the page seems to load fine in IE8 now but something still seems to be broken with the shadowbox.

[petemitch]

oh ok, you'd only just added that in, missed that bit, but I can't get it to break in IE8 anymore.

[a-terrestrial]

You're viewing this page http://montanatribes.org/main.php?page=intro and click the Introduction video link with no troubles? The page loads fine? Gosh, I wonder why it won't work for me. I have an account of it not working on another computer in IE exhibiting the same issues I have been describing, so it's not just my browser..

Darn, I can display http://www.shadowbox-js.com/index.html just fine in IE8 so somewhere on my site there is a conflict with the SB code and my code.

[petemitch]

Well the Shadowbox fails to open but the page seems to load fine now.  I did see the problem you first mentioned but it was on an old VM that was running the IE8 beta.  The image has just expired so I've updated to the latest IE8 test image from Microsoft which has the proper release version of IE8, might be worth checking what version you're testing on?

Other than that I think you're on the right lines in looking for some sort of conflict with your other scripts.  The shadowbox markup gets appended as the last thing in the body tag so it sounds like something is trying to alter the DOM while the shadowbox is being appended.

Hope you get it sorted.

Regards, Peter.

[mjijackson]

I am not able to duplicate the error. The video loads fine in my tests. I'm using IE8, version 8.0.6001.18702.

[Gorge]

Hey guys.

I love the shadowbox.js ! I used code provide on the home page for Miscellaneous- Submit form. Now my question : I am using asp.net.. when I submit the form the shadowbox closes fine.. however how to I get it to refresh the main page from where it was clicked.

Anyone any help ?

[CPeters]

Is there an issue with the portion of the script that is calling on the Quicktime objects?  This page Audio Guide doesn't load at all at first it looks like all the quicktime files are coming in then they turn into black rectangles that are unusable in IE 7.

I tried the first page where you have the click here for video introduction to this website and it never loads for me in IE 7 either.  It just sits there constantly attempting to load (windows Aero busy in the tab of IE never stops spinning it just goes and goes while displaying Connecting)

I'm running Vista 64 with IE7

[CPeters]

By the way a-terrestrial nice job on the "meet the speakers" section, that's slick! :)

[Auggie]

Hey Im having the same problems with my site. Its strange I went through everything trying to figure out what was causing this erractic parsing. Here is my site: portfolio.onyx1graphics.com and the page that I have issues is on the graphic design/3d animation/web because those are the pages that I used SB. My graphic page is XHTML varified with W3C. what solutions can I implement?

Thanks

[jasper]

same thing for me. ie8 prevents the site from loading and crashes. the ie7 trick doesn't work, adding css rules doesn't work. site does and box effect works perfecly on mac - of course.

option of last resort....is there an alternative script to this one?

tnx. jasper

[Wizzud]

What happens if you comment out line 52, eg...

//   so.write("flashcontent");

Does Shadowbox then work?

[Wizzud]

Web-accessible example page?