timestamp becomes a loop

December 17, 2009 2:02 PM

I use comment time stamps as bookmarks on a thread to return to that spot, but they're not working like they used to.

If I've ended up somewhere else on a page, then hit "refresh" the page sends me back to the bookmarked comment for a split second, and then back to where I had been before refreshing. This happens on the front page and in Ask. FF 3.55.

posted by oneirodynia to Bugs at 2:02 PM (11 comments total)

That's firefox, not mefi.
posted by frecklefaerie at 2:06 PM on December 17, 2009

We haven't changed anything with timestamps on this end. I guess one place to check is Firefox Add-Ons. Have you installed any recently that could be interfering? Did you recently switch to a new version of Firefox? Maybe this behavior changed in the browser itself.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:09 PM on December 17, 2009

yeah, I can duplicate this in Firefox 3.55 too. I think it's the default browser behavior.

one thing you can do after refresh is click in the browser address bar and hit Enter. That should take you the correct comment.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:14 PM on December 17, 2009

the only add-on I have is AdBlock, which I recently updated. I'll try disabling it.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:14 PM on December 17, 2009

Thanks for checking pb.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:21 PM on December 17, 2009

It's a browser thing, definitely. Always open the link to a permalink time in a new tab. This ensures it'll jump to the right place, regardless of however your browser feels like caching/holding your spot.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:41 PM on December 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

If it opens to wrong spot but it definitely has the anchor tag, Ctrl+Shift+R will do what you want in Firefox (in Windows). That's the keyboard command for a non-cache reload of the page. Holding control and clicking the Reload button does the same thing. I don't know Mac command equivalents, but they likely exist.

Dear onlyconnect, please ignore this procrastination.
posted by NortonDC at 6:00 PM on December 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

Ooh, I've always wanted that behavior in browsers.
posted by kmz at 6:35 PM on December 17, 2009

I have the same thing happen in Firefox from time to time. Check and see if you have tabs open with different zoom levels (Ctrl+ and Ctrl-). I never noticed the problem till I magnified the font on a page one day and after that, all subsequent time stamp links would load, then Firefox reapplied the zoom and moved my location on the page.

Or something.

I'm sure I could fix it, but I end up using pb's address-bar-click-and-then-enter method and promptly forget about it.
posted by quin at 8:12 AM on December 18, 2009

Ctrl+Shift+R will do what you want in Firefox (in Windows). That's the keyboard command for a non-cache reload of the page. Holding control and clicking the Reload button does the same thing. I don't know Mac command equivalents, but they likely exist.


Thanks, both of these work with the command key on my mac.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:37 AM on December 18, 2009

Do you have an alternate stylesheet set up with the site (Metafilter Baby Blue/Etc.)? Or the Remember Scroll Position extension installed?
posted by MikeHarris at 1:16 PM on December 18, 2009