Blanked out Line in Dropdown box

[unblinded]

When I first load the PC.com page I can pull up the drop downs fine but as soon as I start to scroll to the next subject (ie Cat-eLog or Forum) the first line has a blank section over it so I can't see the topic or select it (ie "What is my catfish?" is blank & I cannot select it under Forum).

[MatsP]

Can you describe in a bit more detail what you are doing?

Also, what browser?

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Mats

[unblinded]

IE8, when I scroll over the drop down folder tabs under the planetcatfish logo the top line of each tab is whited out with a white box covering over the first option in each drop down. Basically it won't allow you to select the first option on the dropdown, you have to click the tab & then go to each link. For instance, I can't select "What is my catfish?" from the home page because it is whited out on the drop down.

[Jools]

I think this maybe because your browser has either incorrectly cached a stylesheet or correctly cached an incorrect stylesheet. Which is a hard sentence to write let alone explain!

Browse to the front page, hold down a shift key and press F5. Wait for the page to load fully. Any improvement?

Jools

[unblinded]

When I hold down shift & press F5 from the home page it fixes the issue for a second, then it goes white again when I scroll to the next subject.

[MatsP]

Is this still a problem?

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Mats

[unblinded]

Yep, Mats, still can't see the first line. I've rebooted, cleared cache and even changed computers.

[MatsP]

First of all, I've tried to reproduce thise with IE8 on my machine. It doesn't happen.

I do see a bit of drawing in the wrong place with the Cat-eLog menu (see attached screenshot.jpg), but no white line, and the forum menu looks fine to me (see attached screenshot2.jpg).

What OS are you using? What screen resolution?

Can you take a screen shot of it going wrong (press the "prtsc" button when it's going wrong, and then open "mspaint" and paste in your copied screen content)?

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Mats

[unblinded]

Here's a screenshot. I believe we use Windows XP Pro here at work. Not sure of the screen res.

[MatsP]

I'm not sure what is happening here, but looking at the screenshot, and bearing in mind that I've been working with computer graphics (drivers and other graphics drawing subsystems) in various ways for 6 of the past 8 years, I suspect this is a problem with the driver for the graphics card in the PC. I can't really see what in HTML/CSS that could cause this particular drawing problem. The "this is what you are selecting" doesn't cover into the edge of the black box around the menu.

Of course, I can't be 100% sure.

When you say you are using a different PC, is it a different one of the same model, or a completely different type of machine, like a laptop? If so, it would rule out my above suspicion.

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Mats

[unblinded]

It's a different computer tower, same model. It's puzzling because it hadn't done that before about 3 weeks ago. It's almost like there is a blank section/box that stretches from CotM all the way to Cool. It doesn't show up on the Help! dropdown.

[MatsP]

It is possible that either your machines have had some sort of update/change, or that some changes to the layout is "confusing" your graphics driver.

Note that I haven't ruled out that something is wrong on our site, but it "feels" unlikely to me. I don't know how much computer programming and such you've done, but it's a bit like "detective work" on TV - sometimes you just "feel" that some part of the system is what the problem is, just like the detective on TV has a "gut feeling" that Mr X is the bad guy, even if there is no real proof. [And to get proof in this case, I'd have to have a machine just like yours, and then do some testing on the machine.

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Mats

[Jools]

I think it's the facebook like box causing the issue. Possibly due to something (an add-on) blocking it or not rendering it right. Would make sense regarding timing too.

Suggest the following in no real order.

Find the "broken page" compatibility view setting and switch it off.

Upgrade to MSIE9.

Disable add-ons one by one and see if it works.

Try running MSIE in protected mode.

Use another browser. A bit tongue in cheek, but in all honesty, IE is the worst out of the top 4.

Jools

[Dave Rinaldo]

I think it's the facebook like box causing the issue. Possibly due to something (an add-on) blocking it or not rendering it right. Would make sense regarding timing too.

I certainly know nothing about computers, but makes sense as there isn't a 'Like' button in the screenshot.

[unblinded]

Well, that's for sure it. I didn't realize there was a facebook link on the page. Facebook is blocked here at work & that explains it. This can be moved out of Bugs for sure. I haven't visited the site away from work in several months to know there was a facebook link. Thanks for figuring it out.

[MatsP]

Shows that my thought was all wrong... Typical.

However, I think this could be handled somehow, such that it doesn't disrupt the page for those who have facebook blocked. I'm not entirely sure how that can be done, but I'm pretty sure it's possible...

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Mats