Chrome Needs Polishing

April 4, 2009 5:39 AM

Links to specific comments don't work for me when using Chrome (with Vista).

On both my desktop and laptop machines, clinking a link to a specific comment on Chrome takes me to the right page, but nowhere close to the right comment. This happening to anyone else?

posted by Pater Aletheias to Bugs at 5:39 AM (20 comments total)

Yes. That happens to me as well. I seem to remember hearing that there was some problem with Chrome and anchors. Meaning it is an issue with Chrome and not with Mefi. Of course, I have no link to back this up.

It is annoying though, hey? Only thing I don't like about Chrome.
posted by dirtdirt at 5:45 AM on April 4, 2009

It works for me, I've got Chrome 2.0.169.1.
However, the formatting buttons on the comment box still don't work.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:55 AM on April 4, 2009

Interesting. I have 1.0.154.53. But the formatting buttons work fine for me.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:41 AM on April 4, 2009

I upgraded to the Beta release. Comment links work now, but the formatting buttons disappeared entirely, and some other things are wonky.

We need some Mefites on the Chrome development team.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:49 AM on April 4, 2009

If you use IE with Vista you will be problem-free.
posted by Zambrano at 11:54 AM on April 4, 2009

^ flame bait! :D

I've never really had any problems with Metafilter using the latest Firefox, either. This can change if you go ape with Greasemonkey, though.
posted by dunkadunc at 11:58 AM on April 4, 2009

Yeah, I've been using Firefox for a long time, trouble-free, but wanted to give Chrome a shot. Guess I'll stick with Firefox until Chrome works out all the bugs.

IE? Do people still use that? I thought it was only there so that you could visit getfirefox.com when you boot up your new machine.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:26 PM on April 4, 2009

If you don't want to get the beta, the trick is to refresh the linked page.
posted by teremala at 1:44 PM on April 4, 2009

IE? Do people still use that? I thought it was only there so that you could visit getfirefox.com when you boot up your new machine.

That was the last time I used it on my machine, although it's the only option on my university's computers, along with the MSN.COM homepage and Windows Live search.

My beef is that Chrome doesn't have the awesomeness of Adblock Plus.
posted by dunkadunc at 1:49 PM on April 4, 2009

Safari works well, too.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:18 PM on April 4, 2009

I stopped trusting Google a few weeks ago, and Chrome has always seemed ridiculously weird on install; all this automated bullshit and "la la la, don't worry, wink-wink nod-nod we're just downloading things to install on your system and not telling you about any of it, we're so user-friendly that you won't even notice that our browser and search service are so regularly intimate with your registry that we have our own toothbrush at its house" crap is just a little much for a 'small-footprint' browser whose sole draw to me is that it's minimalist.

There are certain things I really miss about Firefox (especially the common hotkeys - f6, for example) but there are things I don't, like the honking Gecko engine and the startup wait time; so I guess I'll be sticking with Opera for a while.
posted by koeselitz at 2:28 PM on April 4, 2009 [1 favorite]

For me, Chrome's anchor finding seems to work differently depending on the window width, and whether or not I've hit refresh after the page is loaded. But it definitely has issues on non-Metafilter sites.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:15 PM on April 4, 2009

Chrome often screws up anotherpage#anchor links but thispage#anchor links work fine. That's why refreshing fixes it.
posted by aubilenon at 1:19 AM on April 5, 2009

Anchors seem to work for me on this install (1.0.154.53) but not on a different install on a different computer. It's only really annoying when someone uses the anchor to point to a comment (which is otherwise unidentifiable) to which they are responding. I find this practice pretty annoying anyway, especially in long threads, as it forces a page reload just to find that comment. Since I usually ignore them, and I doubt I am alone, I guess it diminishes the impact of their comment.
posted by caddis at 6:20 AM on April 5, 2009

I'm on the stable release, too, and I find that comment links work if I refresh. So it looks like this: open page, end up in weird spot, hit refresh, profit!
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:59 AM on April 5, 2009

For using someone else's mature rendering engine, Chrome has always seemed to have a high number of quirks and bugs. It's been 6 months.
posted by smackfu at 8:54 AM on April 5, 2009

This is a Chrome bug. One way to get around it is to click the link, and then once the page has loaded, go into the address bar and hit enter again. This should take you to the link you were looking for.
posted by !Jim at 11:33 AM on April 5, 2009

caddis, in FF3 not only does that not cause a reload, but it even lets you click the back button to return you to where you clicked from.
posted by finite at 5:08 PM on April 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

It may be time to upgrade......
posted by caddis at 6:22 PM on April 5, 2009

This is a (relatively) ancient bug in Chrome. I think Jon Eckspee hit the nail on the head with his testcases: Chrome has issue with content changing sizes after the named anchor has already been used to scroll the page.

Star that bug if you want to receive updates about it. (And it'll show up higher on sort-bugs-by-star-votes lists.)
posted by shadytrees at 8:32 PM on April 6, 2009