Andy Crawford

Artisteer is usually very stable and reliable, but I cam e across this display error whilst working on another website.

The symptoms were:

• The menu bar repeated itself and stretched down the page
• A large gap appeared below the content or “comments are off” 
• The page froze, no scrolling, and none of the taskbar items would work (in IE8)

The only way out was to shut down IE8 or click on the header link or a menu link taking me to a page theat was not loaded with post content.

My process of elimination was to:

• Validate the page with W3.org.
• Clear IE8 cache of temporary files.
• Remove the post content, iFrames, Google maps, jQuery tabs.
• Diasable Plugins
• Log out of WordPress
• Install a new theme.

Still no joy …

The problem did not exist in Firefox or Google Chrome and even more strangely, the problem did not exists when viewing in IE8 on my desktop or 2nd laptop, it only existed on my Studio Laptop. All three were running Windows XP SP3 and all were up to date with Windows Updates.

So I eventually figured that this must be problem somewhere between Artisteer and my installation of IE8. I reinstalled IE8, and then went through every possible setting to make sure that the settings on the Studio Laptop were the same as the others. (toolbars, add-ons etc).

I eventually found the problem. The page was being viewed in IE8 in Compatibility View. After you load a page in IE8 an icon appears at the end of the address bar. The feature is there to correct display errors when viewing websites designed for older browsers (presumably websites designed for older versions of Internet Explorer). This had inadvertently been clicked at some point for the website I was viewing and was causing the issue. The Compatibility View icon sits next to the refresh/reload button so it is easy to see how it was accidentally clicked while refreshing the page.

So, it was nothing to do with Artisteer, jQuery Plugins, iFrames or Google Maps. It was Compatibility View being unable to render the page correctly with jQuery while IE8 was in compatibility view for that website.

One click of the Compatibility View Icon sorted the issue.