[Rails-spinoffs] Re: IE 6 SP1 crashes on pages with Scriptaculous - SOLVED

[Aleksandar Vacic]

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 23:26:09 +0200
Aleksandar Vacic <lists at aplus.co.yu> wrote:
> 	I'm using Scriptaculous 1.1b1 on a particular web site and I've
> been told that it consistently crashes IE 6 SP1 (on WinXP) - everytime
> my friend tries to access one of the page employing those scripts, IE
> dies with:
> "Application Error 0x0eefade occured in the application at 0x77e738b2..."
> 
> 	Has anyone experienced this? Any ideas how to solve?
> 
> 	I can't repeat it on several comps I tried, no matter how much I
> try - it always works as it should.

	I found the cause, after over 5h of torture and despair. It's an
incredible one, to say the least. This error makes the use of
prototype.js impossible, thus I figure it would be good for all of you
to know.

	First, it manifests as IE crashin' in iexplore.exe and
kernel32.dll as soon as you try to open the page. Sometimes it shows the
page content but then crashes before finishing loading. After
installation of Visual Studio debugger, it turned out that
IE crashes because of "R625 - pure virtual function call" error. 

	On the long end, it turned out that TextWare's QuickFind BHO is
causing the crash. This is not a spyware nor anything similar - it's a
utility that can come with any kind of app. In this case it comes with
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary on CD-ROM. It serves the purpose
that if you mouse over any word on the screen it will show you dict.
entry for it. Once we disabled this BHO in IE (using BHODeamon) IE
crashes stopped.

	Now, my friend never had any similar problem, all the while
having this Dictionary installed (like over a year). It only occured on
the page using prototype.js and all three script.aculo.us scripts. I
think I tried with just prototype.js and that it crashed as well - can't
really remember now.

	The most bizarre thing about the crash was that page loaded
correctly if I did not move the mouse. As soon as mouse was moved, IE
crashed. After we found the cause, it makes perfect sense since QuickFind
is monitoring the mouse and executes on its movement.

	Exactly what part of prototype.js|scriptaculous fires this error
- have no idea. I tried to establish that, but without luck. I suspect
is something with fix IE-code (setting position:relative). It can also
be a combination of having overflow:auto on the UL which is also defined
as Sortable.
	This I believe is something that developers would often encouter.
If you are drag-sropping or sorting large lists, it makes sense to fit
them in the visible part of the browser window with overflow.

	In any case, pay attention to this. If IE crashes with
scriptaculous on the page, first thing to try is to uncheck "Enable
third-party browser extenstions" in Tools/Internet Options, Advanced tab.
If it works after that, it's a BHO that's causing it.

Regards
-- 
Aleksandar
www.aplus.co.yu