Odd blue box in some posts.

[daniel1948]

This seems odd to me. I have no idea whether it's on the board or just my computer:

Occasionally when a page loads, there is a small blue box, maybe a couple of inches on a side on my screen. Nothing shows through the box. Scrolling the page up or down does not change anything. If I scroll so the box scrolls off the screen, and then scroll back, it's still right where it was, blocking the same chunk of text. If I re-load the page, it's gone and all is well. Or, as I recently discovered, if I place my cursor over a line of text that disappears under the blue box, and click and drag into the box (as if highlighting the text) then the box disappears and again all is well. I can un-highlight the text by clicking anywhere else, and the box is still gone.

Obviously, not a serious problem, since a click-drag-click gets rid of it. But it seems weird.

Very old iMac running OS X 10.6.8 and the latest version of Chrome, Version 46.0.2490.80 (64-bit). But it did not start with this version of Chrome. It's been happening for a while.

I don't care if this gets fixed or not. Just curious.

[wastrel]

Any way you can grab a screen cap next time it occurs?

[daniel1948]

I'll try. It's just a blue square at a random spot on the screen, but I will grab a screenshot and post it if I can.

[The Latinist]

Please do. Also please share OS & browser info.  I've not seen this on any of devices.

[daniel1948]

Please do. Also please share OS & browser info.  I've not seen this on any of devices.

OS & Browser info is in my first post of this thread.

And why does it suddenly say "User not found" and three big grinning faces under my name, above my avatar, even though it knows my avatar, my post count, and my slogan under the avatar???

EDIT: Ignore that last paragraph. Now it's back to normal. Maybe a post count of 404 triggers that???

[The Latinist]

Yes, that happens at 404 posts.  Geek humor.  You might have noticed similar jokes at other post counts (13, 42, etc.)

[Ambious]

Did it have a sign on the side saying "Police Box"?

[daniel1948]

Yes, that happens at 404 posts.  Geek humor.  You might have noticed similar jokes at other post counts (13, 42, etc.)

Yeah, I wondered because of the three huge grinning faces, and I know that there's something about 404 in geekland.

Did it have a sign on the side saying "Police Box"?

Nope.

[Friendly Angel]

So is the box thing part of the 404 joke - or some kind of glitch?

[The Latinist]

No, it's unrelated. But until we see a screen shot or have a way of reproducing it we really have nothing to go on as far as a solution.

[daniel1948]

It has not repeated since I posted about it. No big deal. It was not really a problem, just an oddity. But I will grab a screen shot if it happens again.

[The Latinist]

Please do.  I'd like to fix it if we can.

[daniel1948]

If nobody else reports such a thing, it might very well be on my end. I am using a VERY old OS, as mentioned. But yes, I'll post a pic if it happens again.

[daniel1948]

Today it happened on a different web site, convincing me that the issue is at my end. I'm going to guess it might be my ten-year-old computer and 6-year-old OS having trouble keeping up.

I've considered getting a new computer, but my old one works fine for what I use it for (email, weather reports, chat boards, the occasional snail-mail letter, journal, a few web sites, and pics.) The games I play (chess and solitaire) don't require a lot of processing power. And when I go on-line window shopping for a new one, and look at the prices with the fanciest screens, which I'd want, the prices are high. You look at (e.g.) an $800 computer, but then you want more RAM, and then you want a solid state HD, and then you want a bigger screen, and then you want more pixels, and pretty soon you're looking at a $2K machine and reflecting on the fact that you don't really need a new computer at all.

[daniel1948]

Okay. It happened again:



I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with sguforums.com since it happened on another web site also, though there the box was a different color, actually two different shades of gray there.

When I did a screen refresh, the blue box was gone and the page was as it should be. And on previous occasions, if I highlight or maybe just click on a line of text that goes into the blue box, the blue box disappears, and the entire page is normal. I.e. the hidden text appears. But if I highlight a line of text that does not intersect the box, the box remains.

I repeat that this is not a problem for me, since the box goes away easily. I'm just expressing my natural, or perhaps excessive, curiosity regarding anything unexpected.