Ancestry.co.uk and Linux
I'm posting here as I believe it is a Linux related incompatibility problem 
I'm running opensuse 13.1 x64/KDE and Palemoon x64, but konquerer and 32bit PM and FF show the same problem. The problem is unaffected by the extensions installed/enabled etc, from none to lots.
ancestry.co.uk is the only site that has obvious problems (for other sites, any problems are vanishingly small, so not noticeable even if they exist
)
For most sites I visit, web pages appear "near instantaneous", ie blink and you miss it loading (and that's with an ECI modem on a Huawei cab and 40/20 profile). Ancestry, on the other hand, times out if I click once on the bookmark and will eventually load with a 20/3/3/1 type of rapid click load/reload sequence. This happens for all "subdomains" - home.ancestry.co.uk, trees..., secure..., navigation...., header.... - and repeated clicks are also needed if they are elements of the "current" page. Once the delays have passed, further pages load as per other sites, until the cache content gets stale (and that seems a short time, though I've not checked). A VirtualBox WIN7 x64 on the same computer loads the initial page quickly with IE, PM and FF.
So, anyone else have these problems when using Linux (which is absent from Ancestry's "supported" list) and more importantly found a solution? I could partly use WIN 7, but I post-process transcription pages from FMP and Ancestry so that I get a consistent "look and feel" instead of random layout changes whenever FMP/Ancestry feel like
The two sites also have some data on the page that the other does not so combining them saves additional searching (schedule numbers, enumeration district numbers ... ).
I suspect it may be down to the underlying "engine", as a quick "totalvalidator" check of the pages identifies a number of errors, including
- two identical "div" elements on consecutive lines
- header tags within the body text
- unknown values for tag attributes
- malformed links or links that fail
which may be the cause of the problems.
Phil
I'm running opensuse 13.1 x64/KDE and Palemoon x64, but konquerer and 32bit PM and FF show the same problem. The problem is unaffected by the extensions installed/enabled etc, from none to lots.ancestry.co.uk is the only site that has obvious problems (for other sites, any problems are vanishingly small, so not noticeable even if they exist
)For most sites I visit, web pages appear "near instantaneous", ie blink and you miss it loading (and that's with an ECI modem on a Huawei cab and 40/20 profile). Ancestry, on the other hand, times out if I click once on the bookmark and will eventually load with a 20/3/3/1 type of rapid click load/reload sequence. This happens for all "subdomains" - home.ancestry.co.uk, trees..., secure..., navigation...., header.... - and repeated clicks are also needed if they are elements of the "current" page. Once the delays have passed, further pages load as per other sites, until the cache content gets stale (and that seems a short time, though I've not checked). A VirtualBox WIN7 x64 on the same computer loads the initial page quickly with IE, PM and FF.
So, anyone else have these problems when using Linux (which is absent from Ancestry's "supported" list) and more importantly found a solution? I could partly use WIN 7, but I post-process transcription pages from FMP and Ancestry so that I get a consistent "look and feel" instead of random layout changes whenever FMP/Ancestry feel like
The two sites also have some data on the page that the other does not so combining them saves additional searching (schedule numbers, enumeration district numbers ... ).I suspect it may be down to the underlying "engine", as a quick "totalvalidator" check of the pages identifies a number of errors, including
- two identical "div" elements on consecutive lines
- header tags within the body text
- unknown values for tag attributes
- malformed links or links that fail
which may be the cause of the problems.
Phil
Thanks for "testing", Waldo, and using up your (expensive) allowance
I may have to run a hybrid Linux/Win7 mix to do what I want
as I can set up a profile to download into a VirtualBox "share" of the appropriate directories. Currently, if using a "single" click, it takes a little over 2m for the page to start changing and a further 2m+ to complete (and that's after speeding things up by "blacklisting" the activity monitoring elements, otherwise it times out).
Strangely, everything was running fine until (at about the same time): 1. Ancestry released their latest upgrade 2. Plusnet moved me to Fibre and 3. I queued a "free trial" to start at the end of the current one! (I look for cheap old versions of FTM and treat it as a half-price or less 6 month sub with a throw-away software bundle).
Phil
I may have to run a hybrid Linux/Win7 mix to do what I want
as I can set up a profile to download into a VirtualBox "share" of the appropriate directories. Currently, if using a "single" click, it takes a little over 2m for the page to start changing and a further 2m+ to complete (and that's after speeding things up by "blacklisting" the activity monitoring elements, otherwise it times out).Strangely, everything was running fine until (at about the same time): 1. Ancestry released their latest upgrade 2. Plusnet moved me to Fibre and 3. I queued a "free trial" to start at the end of the current one! (I look for cheap old versions of FTM and treat it as a half-price or less 6 month sub with a throw-away software bundle).
Phil
Thanks HB,
I have a "special" profile specific to this interest and it is set to auto-login when Ancestry is loaded. A test loading of the "login" page in a different profile responds almost immediately then the "logged-in" session is back to slow, so it may be an account problem - bearing in mind it is the only site (so far ) that is slow
I have tried new profiles, deleting and recreating all profiles, re-loading/initialising the browser ..., but no discernible change.
Phil
I have a "special" profile specific to this interest and it is set to auto-login when Ancestry is loaded. A test loading of the "login" page in a different profile responds almost immediately then the "logged-in" session is back to slow, so it may be an account problem - bearing in mind it is the only site (so far
) that is slow I have tried new profiles, deleting and recreating all profiles, re-loading/initialising the browser ..., but no discernible change.
Phil
@HB,
Just had a reply from Ancestry support saying they had passed my message on to the development team but, as I use (unsupported) Palemoon, they are unable to otherwise help and that they recommend using Chrome (with an admission that doesn't help here!). As seems typical with support, they carefully ignored my comment that (supported) Firefox exhibits exactly the same behaviour.
I have noticed a few times over the years that the Linux engine(s) are more rigid when processing web pages than MS Windows, in terms of standards, and made that comment in my report. That was especially true with the IE6 (I think) generation, where it, specifically, would display just about anything and MS were using trying to impose their own extensions that other browsers didn't process. I also included some detail of the errors from a "totalvalidator" run.
Don't think I shall hold my breath
Phil
Just had a reply from Ancestry support saying they had passed my message on to the development team but, as I use (unsupported) Palemoon, they are unable to otherwise help and that they recommend using Chrome (with an admission that doesn't help here!). As seems typical with support, they carefully ignored my comment that (supported) Firefox exhibits exactly the same behaviour.
I have noticed a few times over the years that the Linux engine(s) are more rigid when processing web pages than MS Windows, in terms of standards, and made that comment in my report. That was especially true with the IE6 (I think) generation, where it, specifically, would display just about anything and MS were using trying to impose their own extensions that other browsers didn't process. I also included some detail of the errors from a "totalvalidator" run.
Don't think I shall hold my breath
Phil
I covered that by using a profile that had not used Ancestry before (including a newly created profile). Also, all my profiles are set to delete cookies on exit unless explicitly selected for retention, which ancestry is for the one profile.
Anyway, I went through the process, as I don't reject suggestions without trying them
The result is that getting to my home page was improved considerably (though I still have some (tracking) elements blocked as untrusted ) and moving to display a stored tree improved similarly, but only for the one session - a browser restart and back as before.
I also went to the extreme and blocked cookies - it looped on the initial page waiting for a login
Phil
Anyway, I went through the process, as I don't reject suggestions without trying them
The result is that getting to my home page was improved considerably (though I still have some (tracking) elements blocked as untrusted ) and moving to display a stored tree improved similarly, but only for the one session - a browser restart and back as before.I also went to the extreme and blocked cookies - it looped on the initial page waiting for a login
Phil