IE6 sometimes fails to load stylesheet
We're having an issue where IE6 (the only browser we've noticed this about) seems to be caching an empty version of our main stylesheet. The only way to solve the problem is to request the stylesheet directly by typing its url directly in the browser, and then when you refresh the page, it will appear with the styles. In about a week it will happen again.
This does not happen to all users, but we cannot understand why this is happening.
We are running IIS on Server 2003 and this problem started a few months ago (never had any problems before).
I appreciate any help you can offer.
Floor
* I took a closer look and now it does the same for some Javascripts.
- 12.12.2008
Thanks for the help Grant, IE is pretty blocked but checked out what can be changed and that's ok and no additional plugins installed.
If you Ctrl-F5 or kill temporary files it does nothing. It's not until you ask for the file directly, which in fact it actually fixes an issue that indicates there is a problem with IE caching a broken or empty version. Unfortunately now I have to wait until this happens again and I check the log files on the server.
Thanks again for your help.
I can't give you a straightforward answer, but I would start by installing Fiddler and examining Content-type
and last-modified
the response headers of the files that are causing the problems.
Also notice the values of the request header If-Modified-Since
and Pragma
.
Also, I would check the accessibility options in IE (Tools> Internet Options ...> Accessibility).
Also, make sure they haven't installed any add-ons that might cause this type of behavior. Unrelated example: A couple of years ago we had an issue where IE6 stopped sharing session files between browsers for one of our users. This turned out to be some kind of cursor addition in IE causing the problem.
Obviously, if your users are using a locked copy of IE, the above suggestions don't apply.
Finally, what happens if the user holds CTRL and hits F5 to refresh the page unconditionally, do they get the latest copy of the stylesheet and JavaScript files? And have you tried completely clearing your browser history and loading a fresh copy of the page (perhaps the cache itself is corrupted)?
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I also had the same behavior. However, I used a PHP style sheet in which headers and all other information (cache client, cache server, compression) were fine-tuned in PHP for optimal performance.
Worked like a charm, but it seemed like IE6 was not loading stylesheets on some computers in a non-reproducible way. I didn't have time to investigate, and I didn't have access to the problem computers, so we went back to simple simple stylesheets and everything was fine. We said it had to do with a firewall, but I'm sure there is something annoying about IE6.
I ask you to know what it is ...
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