25 replies to this topic

[DennisD]

Are you guys up for solving another minor Opera mystery?

I've had the same home page for a long time, using it in Firefox and Opera, and until a few days ago, they both displayed and worked fine.

This is how it should look with Firefox. I can delete, minimise, or move the gadgets around, and I can add new ones:



And this is how it now looks in Opera. I can't do anything with any of it. Can't minimise, delete, or drag and drop the gadgets. I can't add anything new, and the links that still highlight, are actually dead. Nothing works:



I've tried the extreme fix. Uninstalled every trace of Opera with Revo Uninstaller and a search with regedit, and reinstalled V 9.27. I was pretty amazed when the page still wouldn't work.

That Home Page works fine in IE7 as well.

Any ideas?

[Anthony A]

Don't know what to tell you. iGoogle works great in Opera for me.

[Andavari]

I don't know if that page uses Adobe Flash or not, however if it does you can reinstall it for third party browsers.

I stopped using Opera because of some weird issues such as it supposedly loading a page and only displaying the text FOUND.

Edit:
I noticed you have JavaScript enabled so that can't be it. I wonder if changing the user agent in Opera to something like Mozilla or Internet Explorer would fool the page into working, which was a known good "hack" to get some pages to work years ago in Opera that otherwise wouldn't.

[Anthony A]

Andavari, on Aug 5 2008, 02:18 PM, said:

I don't know if that page uses Adobe Flash or not, however if it does you can reinstall it for third party browsers.

I stopped using Opera because of some weird issues such as it supposedly loading a page and only displaying the text FOUND.

Edit:
I noticed you have JavaScript enabled so that can't be it. I wonder if changing the user agent in Opera to something like Mozilla or Internet Explorer would fool the page into working, which was a known good "hack" to get some pages to work years ago in Opera that otherwise wouldn't.

I have Opera set to identify as FireFox on iGoolge. I used site preferences for it not the global setting. I found iGoogle still worked well if I set Opera to identify as opera but it loads faster identifying as FF.

[CeeCee]

Anthony A, on Aug 5 2008, 06:23 PM, said:

I have Opera set to identify as FireFox on iGoolge.

I have Opera set to indentify as Firefox generally. I have found it to be the best option.

[Anthony A]

CeeCee, on Aug 5 2008, 02:55 PM, said:

I have Opera set to indentify as Firefox generally. I have found it to be the best option.

I used to find that too but not any more with 9.5 version. I have come across many sites that did not work well unless Opera identified as Opera. Yahoo Finance which I am in several hours a day works much better when Opera is set to identify as Opera.

[DennisD]

Thanks for the suggestions chaps, I'll give them a try.

[DennisD]

Tried 'em all, and no difference. Just out of curiosity I uninstalled 9.27 and installed 9.51, and the Home Page worked perfectly.

Edit: Just discovered something. If I switch JavaScript off in Firefox, I get exactly the same result:



With my recent browsing without JavaScript (and pages do load quicker), there must be some information embedded in some file on my pc telling my home page that JavaScript is inactive, although it is switched on in the browser.

It can't be in any of the Opera files because I stripped my pc of everything connected with Opera before I reinstalled it. I've a feeling there's a flash cookie lying somewhere, possibly with the no-JavaScript info in it. I'll soon find out.

[Anthony A]

DennisD, on Aug 6 2008, 07:45 AM, said:

Tried 'em all, and no difference. Just out of curiosity I uninstalled 9.27 and installed 9.51, and the Home Page worked perfectly.

Back to 9.27, and it was just as dead, although it worked fine until recently This is getting too weird. Opera is now in retirement for the time being.

Thanks for your input.

Why were you using 9.27 in the first place? 9.5 is much nicer.

If 9.5 worked for you why did you retire Opera?

I use Opera now most of the time although I still use and like FF a lot.

[Icedrake]

Opera 9.5 is a big update from 9.27. Everything is better in 9.5 except for the theme. I still think the classic theme is better than the new 9.5 one.

[DennisD]

I've posted a few times that I can't use my forum messenger at all with anything after 9.27. I can't even preview a post, the cursor disappears, and messages disappear.

Anyways, I've edited the post above, as I've found something out that I'm off to try now.

[Anthony A]

Icedrake, on Aug 6 2008, 09:50 AM, said:

Opera 9.5 is a big update from 9.27. Everything is better in 9.5 except for the theme. I still think the classic theme is better than the new 9.5 one.

I'm not a fan of the new default theme either but there are about 1000 themes to choose from any ways so it's not a problem.

The speed difference between 9.27 and 9.5 is very noticeable even on cable here. The ad blocker is much improved and the speed dial is now able to have more than 9 thumbnails. One thing that needs to be improved is that you can't add exceptions to the ad blocker. You either have to toggle the blocker off globally or use site preferences and do it on per site basis. You couldn't even do that in 9.27 so it's an improvement but needs more.

[DennisD]

It's definitely a Javascript problem.

If I open the Javascript error console, I get dozens of error notifications when I launch Opera 9.27 and open the iGoogle home page. I'm getting the same errors now when I access Piriform.

On the iGoogle home page, I keep getting the error message "you need Javascript enabled to use this page", although it is already enabled. It's got me baffled, and I hate these mysteries.

What on earth is telling the browser that Javascript is disabled, or, why are all the settings reading Javascript Enabled when it isn't.

[Anthony A]

DennisD, on Aug 6 2008, 04:35 PM, said:

It's definitely a Javascript problem.

If I open the Javascript error console, I get dozens of error notifications when I launch Opera 9.27 and open the iGoogle home page. I'm getting the same errors now when I access Piriform.

On the iGoogle home page, I keep getting the error message "you need Javascript enabled to use this page", although it is already enabled. It's got me baffled, and I hate these mysteries.

What on earth is telling the browser that Javascript is disabled, or, why are all the settings reading Javascript Enabled when it isn't.

Dennis you may have Javascript enabled globally but have it disabled on a per site basis. Check site preferences for IGoolge and make sure java script is enabled. Just right click on the page in iGoogle and site preferences is a menu item. Select it and go to the scripting tab and see if java script is enabled. Site preferences override the global preferences.

[DennisD]

Anthony A, on Aug 6 2008, 09:44 PM, said:

Dennis you may have Javascript enabled globally but have it disabled on a per site basis. Check site preferences for IGoolge and make sure java script is enabled. Just right click on the page in iGoogle and site preferences is a menu item. Select it and go to the scripting tab and see if java script is enabled. Site preferences override the global preferences.

I've done that Anthony, and in the scripting section Javascript is enabled.

I've double checked that my Java install is sound, which it is.

I've also cleared out the Java cache in case there was something in there causing this anomaly.

I've searched in all the places flash cookies (which contain settings information) usually reside.

Came up with nothing. And to make it a bit more difficult to understand, as I mentioned earlier, I installed Opera 9.51 and the Javascript problems disappear. Back to Opera 9.27, and they're back.

Sadly I can't use Opera 9.50 because I get all sorts of other glitches, but I like Opera a lot, and would really like to solve this.

You guys with good registry knowledge, could there be a registry key/s containing information telling Opera 9.27 that Javascript is not active when it actually is?

I've searched for something along the lines of "Javascript = 0" pertaining to Opera 9.27, but haven't found anything yet.

[Icedrake]

Check out this link from Opera. It's about debugging JavaScript problems with Opera. Hope that will help with your problem.

[DennisD]

Thanks Ice, I'll definitely check it out.

[Icedrake]

Did you try it?

[DennisD]

I certainly did, along with a hell of a lot of other sites, forums, and blogs, all dedicated to the endless number of scripting problems experienced in Firefox, IE and Opera.

I have found out one interesting fact by doing a lot of transplant surgery last night. There's one file responsible for the difference between Opera 9.27 and Opera 9.50/51/52 in the way they handle scripts on my iGoogle Home Page, and using the forum messenger.

The "opera.dll" file causes all the problems on it's own.

If I swap the 9.27 and 9.50 opera.dlls over, then all the glitches I get are swapped over as well. I can swap the opera.exe files over, chop and change style sheets etc etc, and there isn't a lot of difference, but swapping the opera.dll's virtually turns one version into the other.

What I need is a scripting fix for iGoogle, and although I've found a lot of scripts, so far none fit the bill.

I posted on a Javascript forum the other day, but zero replies so far.

[Icedrake]

So, is your problem a little bit better or is it still where it was?