The bitcoin wiki crash the browser

[sebastian]

I dont know if wiki discussion belong here but I could not find a better forum so I post it here.
Mod is free to move it into right place.

And to the topic. The picture says more than tousands of words, and this appear ONLY if I click a link or visit bitcoin wiki , regardless of the URL to the bitcoin wiki, if I visit it in a NEW FRESH browser window.

Looks like something on the wiki is REALLY badly coded.

Browser version: 8.0.6001.18702



ENGLISH version of the message:

[1714133152]

1714133152

[1714133152]

1714133152

[1714133152]

1714133152

[netrin]

Internet Explorer is known to work poorly in Swedish. In all languages in fact.

[sebastian]

netrin: If its the browser's problem, why does this not appear on any other sites? The last time I got the message was like a year ago and im a very active internet user (7 days/week, more than 12 hours/day) so its not a problem of the browser.

Dont blame the browser. Its the wiki thats is crashing the browser.

[netrin]

If the nail breaks the hammer, is the tool not faulty?

[sebastian]

Not if the nail is harder than the hammer :-)

It would be a browser problem if this appeared on multiple sites, in the same fashion. Since this appear:
ONLY on bitcoin wiki,

its the wiki that isnt in a healthy condition.

[netrin]

No need to yell at me. If I maintained the site, I'd pander to those stubborn users who continue to use fragile malformed tools. But thankfully, it's not my domain. Your browser sucks and the wiki is only pointing that fact out to you. The error dialog is informing you which application is at fault. On this point, you can trust Microsoft. A parent knows its nasty child best.

[sebastian]

Okay, so you say, that if the wiki is sending bad data to the browser, that the browser does not expect, and the browser crash, its the browsers fault?

So if I fill up my diesel car with Petrol 95octan and the engine gets broken forever and the car engine need replacing, then its the car's fault that it didnt accept "bad input"?


I understand that you hate IE, but thats not the topic of this discussion. The topic of this discussion is a serious bug in the wiki that crash the browser. It can happy with ANY browser. No browser is completely 100 % crash resistant. If the browser gets something down the throats that it didnt expect, it crash, simple as that. The problem lies in the wiki, NOT the browser. The browser are only trying to intepret what the wiki are sending, and the things the wiki sent was something that didn't compute.


BTW, updated the problem description in the main post. Found out a new era of the problem, that the problem appear in ALL fresh browser windows (not "open in a new window", but launching IE from the desktop), when I visit the bitcoin wiki, regardless of if I click a wiki link or enter *any* url that goes to the bitcoin wiki.

[netrin]

If a non-malicious page crashes your browser, then your browser is to blame. The page may also be faulty, but your browser is definitely faulty.

Okay, so you say, that if the wiki is sending bad data to the browser, that the browser does not expect, and the browser crash, its the browsers fault?

Yes.

So if I fill up my diesel car with Petrol 95octan and the engine gets broken forever and the car engine need replacing, then its the car's fault that it didnt accept "bad input"?

If you introduced sulfuric acid into your car engine, then no, I would say you intensionally fubar'd your car. If on the other hand, a normal sample of petrol was introduced to your petrol engine and your engine failed due to that petrol (or normal diesel to a diesel engine), then I would conclude that your engine's fault tolerance was inadequate.

If a browser fails because it is vulnerable to malicious attack (virus), well that's unfortunate and should be immediately fixed. But it is unacceptable to consistently fail during normal operation.

We can and should expect more validation from our browsers than our physical cars. If you tried to open a diesel file with your browser, it should know that it can not handle it and fail gracefully: "I'm sorry, this is an invalid file type". A crashing program is always a faulty program (or system).

I understand that you hate IE, but thats not the topic of this discussion.

I do not hate IE. Microsoft has introduced a huge number of brilliant innovations, but they have fallen behind and have not kept up with standards nor kept their browser robust.

You have three options. Use another browser. Send the report to Microsoft and let them fix it. Or expect the maintainers of the website to try to figure out what particular normal and valid piece of code is making your unstable application fail.

The maintainers will of course consider this because there may be numerous people who continue to use faulty tools. But I'm suggesting to you to take matters into your own hands.

The topic of this discussion is a serious bug in the wiki that crash the browser.

That may be true. But the more likely explanation is that a serious bug in the browser is triggered by the innocuous wiki.

Perhaps you could try to deconstruct the web page and figure out what is causing your browser to fail. Microsoft would appreciate it. If your message makes it to the engineers, you would help improve the outdated browser. The wiki maintainers may appreciate it as well, if your environment is not a unique case.

I wish you the best of luck with your chosen tools.

[ineededausername]

Sir, why are you using IE?  That browser is so horrible... I can't stand it.
edit: We don't need anyone who still uses IE using Bitcoin.  Who cares about them?

[netrin]

Well we care about them and we should help them make intelligent decisions.

[sebastian]

I am a programmer, so I can explain:

Lets say I write a custom bitcoin client that allows you to share 10 bitcoins to Y people evenly.
And a stubborn user/client are writing 0 as Y, the application take 10/0, it don't compute and the application crash.

Its not the application's fault that you/the client wrote 0 as Y. Its the fault of whoever that sent the erronous data. The application didnt expect you to write 0 people to share your 10 bitcoins between, it tries to compute it, OS returns "Cannot divide by 0", the app croaks and gets a runtime error -> crash.

And do you call this "normal and valid"?
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=https%3A%2F%2Fen.bitcoin.it%2Fwiki%2FMain_Page&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0


Its really a problem in the wiki and not the browser. Please understand it.
And how are you not hating IE when you say that its "faulty tools" and that the browser sucks?



"consistently fail during normal operation."

Not consistently. If it crashed on every site I visited, I would wonder if IE is a good browser or not and switch to a another one. But now, its does not consistently fail, it fails *only on bitcoin's wiki* and nowhere else.



ineededausername: Because I like IE. Whats horrible with the browser? Its the browser that works with most pages, but not with the wiki.

[netrin]

I am a programmer, so I can explain:

Lets say I write a custom bitcoin client that allows you to share 10 bitcoins to Y people evenly.
And a stubborn user/client are writing 0 as Y, the application take 10/0, it don't compute and the application crash.

Please tell me for which company you program so that I may short your stock. If you do not validate your input you should be fired or reeducated. Catching divide by zero errors are not rocket science.

Its not the application's fault that you/the client wrote 0 as Y.

No. It is the programmers fault for not catching this obvious input and handling it gracefully.

Its the fault of whoever that sent the erronous data.

Absolutely not! If it's some hack job script your write yourself, these errors are acceptable, but never for a mass consumption product. Your analogies proves my point!

"Cannot divide by 0", the app croaks and gets a runtime error -> crash.

No program of mine written for others has ever crashed twice due to a divide by zero error. No program written by others has been run twice by me with the same error.

And do you call this "normal and valid"?
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=https%3A%2F%2Fen.bitcoin.it%2Fwiki%2FMain_Page&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

Ha, you got me. I checked that too! I do call it normal, though it is not valid html. Consider for example: http://html5.validator.nu/?doc=http://google.com

Its really a problem in the wiki and not the browser. Please understand it.

This I refuse. The wiki could be improved if others share your problem. But it is first and foremost your browser's problem. It is the wiki maintainers problem only in so far as you are its audience and Microsoft is unlikely to read and respond to your error report.

And how are you not hating IE when you say that its "faulty tools" and that the browser sucks?

My girlfriend is faulty and sucks, but I love her.

"consistently fail during normal operation."

Not consistently. If it crashed on every site I visited, I would wonder if IE is a good browser or not and switch to a another one. But now, its does not consistently fail, it fails *only on bitcoin's wiki* and nowhere else.

You may be a programmer who believe divide by zero errors are acceptable, but you must not be a web developer. The hoops developers must go through to get pages to behave correctly in IE are enormous. The only reason IE renders most pages correctly is because of market share and developers over extending themselves testing and breaking their pages to conform to IE's fickleness.

[bluefirecorp]

http://acid3.acidtests.org/

'nough said.

[ThomasV]

what is Internet Explorer?

[adamstgBit]

what is Internet Explorer?

 

[elggawf]

Okay, so you say, that if the wiki is sending bad data to the browser, that the browser does not expect, and the browser crash, its the browsers fault?

Yes.

The Bitcoin wiki could probably be edited to figure out why and stop it, but make no mistake: it's your browser's fault.

I am a programmer, so I can explain:

Lets say I write a custom bitcoin client that allows you to share 10 bitcoins to Y people evenly.
And a stubborn user/client are writing 0 as Y, the application take 10/0, it don't compute and the application crash.

Its not the application's fault that you/the client wrote 0 as Y. Its the fault of whoever that sent the erronous data. The application didnt expect you to write 0 people to share your 10 bitcoins between, it tries to compute it, OS returns "Cannot divide by 0", the app croaks and gets a runtime error -> crash.

Get a different job, you should not be programming if you don't understand the concept of "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send." Particularly when dealing with something that operates on a public network, if a user can reliably trigger a divide by zero error, you are terrible at your job. Error checking, bitches.

[bitclown]

Rebuild your client with debug symbols and post the stack tra... Oh. Format and reinstall should do.

2009 called and wanted their platform back. They also kept going on about this bitcoin thing. Not falling for that one.

[sebastian]

I agree with the robustness principle, that programmers (like me) should implement error checking and handle all errors gracefully, which most, like me, do. But what I also say, is that those inputting things into software should make sure to not input bad data.

And what I say, is that if a software fail due to bad input, and the programmer forgot to implement error checking, is still the fault of whoever that provide the bad data, not the fault of the programmer or the software in question.


About web development, it is in fact easy to do web pages that works in most browsers, including IE.
Validate your pages against HTML 3.2, no CSS and no JS, and your pages will work wonderfully in most browsers including old versions of IE like IE 4.0.


bluefirecorp: 23/100 and a big "FAIL" and the text "You should not see this at all" behind FAIL.

-----

But now we are not talking about badly rendered pages, which can be acceptable in most cases.
What im talking about now is:
The browser CRASH when visiting bitcoin wiki thats a unacceptable fault of the wiki! The wiki are sending something that causes the browser to CRASH, be it something in SSL handshake, be it something in HTML code, be it whatever. But please fix it!

[netrin]

But what I also say, is that those inputting things into software should make sure to not input bad data.

That's the user's prerogative -- such as the author of a virus.

if a software fail due to bad input, and the programmer forgot to implement error checking, is still the fault of whoever that provide the bad data, not the fault of the programmer or the software in question.

No. No og nej! Inte ens lite rätt.

About web development, it is in fact easy to do web pages that works in most browsers, including IE.

No again. Developers have gotten used to it and command high salaries because of IE's 'creative' use of standards. But dude, you are turning a fun little thread into an exposition of your programming ineptitude. You are wrong.

Whoever is responsible for the wiki may give a shit and 'fix' YOUR BROWSER'S problem, but I wouldn't recommend that you hold your breath waiting, unless others also experience this problem. After two hundred views, have you seen one person say, "Oh, yeah I have the same problem with my <insert browser/environment>"?

If you want to be helpful and support your lovable dinasaur of a browser, why don't you deconstruct the web site, eliminate pieces until you isolate the problem. Perhaps you'll find something interesting. Until then, I doubt it's worth anyone else's trouble.

[jothan]

what is Internet Explorer?

It's the Internets icon.