Chronological view issues

November 20, 2001 4:32 PM

I'm using IE5 on a Win 98 machine, and when I finish reading a thread and hit backspace to return to the front page, I'm plopped back in time to November 17, rather than the top of the thread (I view chronologically). I deleted all my Temporary Internet files, which I thought would fix it, but it's still happening. Ideas?
posted by acridrabbit to bugs at 4:32 PM (12 comments total)

weird. if you refresh the page, does it go to the current one?
posted by mathowie at 5:50 PM on November 20, 2001

No, sir.
posted by acridrabbit at 7:29 PM on November 20, 2001

Wait, apologies. Yes, if I hit F5, to refresh, I do get to the present day. But why is my browser still sending me back to November 17 if I just hit backspace?
posted by acridrabbit at 7:35 PM on November 20, 2001

Same thing's been happening to me (with no IE settings changes that I recall) for the last couple of days, at least. Using IE6 on W2K.
posted by mw at 7:48 PM on November 20, 2001

Weird cache thing?

Does it happen if you use 'alt-[left arrow]' to go back?
posted by alan at 8:45 PM on November 20, 2001

For what it's worth, I just deleted twenty(!) metafilter cookies today, all on the same W95 machine running IE 5.01. However, I'm not having the problem you're having...
posted by shinybeast at 9:14 PM on November 20, 2001

Oh, and another thing which might actually apply. IE has a bug. When you delete your temporary internet files, all of the files may not be deleted. I've seen this on many different versions of Windows, running different versions of IE. Periodically, I have to go into DOS and blow away files, sometimes 100 megs or more. Apparently, there's a utility that will help you do this. More info can be found here.
posted by shinybeast at 9:20 PM on November 20, 2001

I had no idea you could hit the backspace key.

I am truly not worthy.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:44 PM on November 20, 2001

The only thing I can think of is that maybe you are not allowing the page to load completely; IE won't update the copy in its cache unless the page is entirely loaded. Try letting Metafilter load until the 'e' stops spinning, click in a thread and then hit backspace.
posted by boaz at 9:53 PM on November 20, 2001

happens to me all the time on a variety of sites, on Mac and on Windows. it's obviously an IE bug.
posted by kindall at 10:07 PM on November 20, 2001

Shinybeast, you're supposed to have 20 cookies. Perhaps more. They contain all your user preferences .. I'm guessing in an effort to relieve the load on the database.
posted by dlewis at 2:31 AM on November 21, 2001

No, it's not just an IE thing. This happens to me on NS6.2 all the time. (It occurred frequently on 6.1, too.)
posted by mrbula at 8:42 AM on November 21, 2001