FamilySearch website issue

[emjay]

The pause I experience when using (trying to) via FireFox is the same, in that I can move the cursor but get no response from 'clicking'. If I start in W8.1 from the ' tiles ' start screen, I am able to move the cursor top right which brings down the 'little cross'(hidden in W8.1) This enables me to close the window and start over, the page will then load as normal.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Once I deselect the MS services, there are only 7 left, some of which are stopped, and there aren't any (running or stopped) which are not on my husband's very similar computer, and he isn't experiencing the Pause.

Yes I forgot about deselecting MS services, not that I trust everyone of those mind and particularly as IE is MS's brainchild. I note your comment comparing services on your own and your husband's and although I haven't tried I dare say I could make the same observations with 3 PC's and 2 laptops. However on the second point:

I can move my cursor around the screen, nothing else seems to change on my screen during the Pause

that does put a damper on things. This has happened to me on quite a few occasions (quite separate from this discussion), what I call the 'time-stands-still' where either the cursor freezes as does the system (apparently) and permits no actions when clicked or -as you describe - the cursor moves but the system freezes. I have tried on many occasions to get to the bottom of each, but always it is too fleeting a pause (say 10-15 seconds, sometimes longer), and occasionaly a mere blink - which happens with my keyboard quite often - and then 'everything in the garden is lovely'.

Will leave it at that for the moment but if I get any inspirational thoughts will comment further.

 

[Pauline]

The pause I experience when using (trying to) via FireFox is the same, in that I can move the cursor but get no response from 'clicking'. If I start in W8.1 from the ' tiles ' start screen, I am able to move the cursor top right which brings down the 'little cross'(hidden in W8.1) This enables me to close the window and start over, the page will then load as normal.

I've probably said it before, but I can't even close the window.

Although I can move the cursor freely around the screen, nothing else I've tried will work until the Pause resolves. However, I guess my computer must be taking notice of my actions behind the scenes because as soon as the Pause ends, everything I'd tried to do during it all happens at once!

 

[Bob Spiers]

I am constantly surprised how many people post on the net about Windows computer freezes from the seemingly minor to the really major. It is in fact a constant 'cri de coeur' throughout technical and not so technical web sites and forums. The one constant you find time and again is the age old trick of Ctrl+Alt+Del/Windows Task Manager(WTM)/Applications/highlight the suspect program and click on End Task. With a bit of luck and a favourable wind the computer will miraculously unfreeze.

In Windows 7 you can right click an empty space on the Taskbar, choose Task Manager and proceed that way but when the system freezes (a la Pauline & emjay) sometimes only the physical keyboard activity caused when performing C/A/D has a chance of working (most of the time). The fact that it may take as long to do all this and the computer will unfreeze of its own volition is another matter. The definitive explanation of why a computer freezes seems to hinge on many (and I mean many) reasons so impossible to tie to one specific factor. Hence we must all continue to clutch at straws.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

You could also use task manager to diagnose the problem. With task manager open on the processes tab click the title bar where it says cpu. This will sort things by amount of processor activity. You want it sorted with the highest usage at the top so you may need to click twice to sort in the right order. Now open your browser and navigate to the suspect page.

What you are looking for is if any process grabs all the cpu activity (cpu of that process goes to 100%) if so you've found the culprit.

Another alternative is to get a program called fiddler2 this will analyse exactly what web pages are being looked at by the browser. It may be that the browser is hanging waiting for a particular page.

 

[Bob Spiers]

You could also use task manager to diagnose the problem. With task manager open on the processes tab click the title bar where it says cpu. This will sort things by amount of processor activity. You want it sorted with the highest usage at the top so you may need to click twice to sort in the right order. Now open your browser and navigate to the suspect page.

What you are looking for is if any process grabs all the cpu activity (cpu of that process goes to 100%) if so you've found the culprit.

Another alternative is to get a program called fiddler2 this will analyse exactly what web pages are being looked at by the browser. It may be that the browser is hanging waiting for a particular page.

Haven't tried that one Alexander but do have Process Hacker which can open in lieu of Task Manager or in addition. It does similar to what you describe using colour codings to show usage across Processes, Service & Network tabs.

 

[Pauline]

What you are looking for is if any process grabs all the cpu activity (cpu of that process goes to 100%) if so you've found the culprit.

As far as I can tell, there is no untoward cpu activity. I can't really tell much using the task manager method because nothing on the screen changes until the Pause is over. But I have checked the performance logs immediately afterwards to see if any there has been any abnormal cpu activity or memory usage, but there is nothing showing. Also, Norton warns me of any high cpu activity, with details of the process or program causing it, and although I wouldn't expect to see the notification during the Pause, I would expect it to pop up immediately afterwards if there had been anything out of the ordinary.

All that the performance logs show afterwards is fairly normal usage by whichever browser I'm visiting the site with.

I still think the issue could be down to the initial "handshake" between my browser (IE11 or Firefox) and FamilySearch, with something about my set-up causing confusion as to which files are needed to load the page. Once sorted on my first visit, this gets logged, so all future visits on the same day, regardless of which browser I use, are fine. However, restarting my computer resets things, and so with each first visit after restarting it happens again.

 

[Pauline]

It may be that the browser is hanging waiting for a particular page.

The browser isn't actually hanging, nor even temporarily showing the "not responding" warning. One annoying feature of Win7 is that it's apt to show a program as "not responding" when it's just being a bit slow for whatever reason, and 99% of the time it clears within a few seconds. My Pause lasts for up to 30 secs, a much longer delay than is usually needed to provoke the "not responding" warning.

 

[Pauline]

Just made a first visit of the day to FamilySearch, and there was no Pause!!!!

I will have to check again over the next few days to be sure that this wasn't a one-off, and as I was using IE, also check using Firefox. But maybe the change to the website that triggered this issue has now been addressed.

Fingers crossed.....

 

[Bob Spiers]

Fingers crossed.....

May need your legs as well?

 

[Pauline]

Fingers were enough - it all worked fine again today, with no Pause.

I checked using IE again since that's my default browser - tomorrow I will try Firefox for my first visit. However, as this issue hasn't so far been browser specific, I'm not expecting it to make any difference which browser I use.

I'm now more convinced than ever that the Pause was triggered by changes at FamilySearch rather than anything on my computer.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Fingers were enough - it all worked fine again today, with no Pause.

I checked using IE again since that's my default browser - tomorrow I will try Firefox for my first visit. However, as this issue hasn't so far been browser specific, I'm not expecting it to make any difference which browser I use.

I'm now more convinced than ever that the Pause was triggered by changes at FamilySearch rather than anything on my computer.

I agree it is unlikely to make any difference which browser you use (other than IE10 which you don't have) but not at all convinced it is not just one of those 'come and go' things originating from within the innards of your software setup which has now auto-corrected. I doubt very much Family search changed anything but that's just my opinion and I doubt it can be proven one way or the other. But the main thing is you are back on track.

Now all I have to do is puzzle out why today all of a sudden emails are taking an age to open and to send and why my laptop cannot find the wireless printer. These things are sent to try us, and by golly they do

 

[Pauline]

I agree it is unlikely to make any difference which browser you use (other than IE10 which you don't have) but not at all convinced it is not just one of those 'come and go' things originating from within the innards of your software setup which has now auto-corrected. I doubt very much Family search changed anything but that's just my opinion

I think we may have to agree to disagree on this one.

Thing is, I just don't see how anything could have auto-corrected - things can only change on my computer if I authorise it. And since the problem only occurred on the Familysearch website, and we know they have been making changes to the site, it seems to me far more likely that something there triggered the issue, and that it's now been sorted.

 

[Tim]

Now all I have to do is puzzle out why today all of a sudden emails are taking an age to open and to send and why my laptop cannot find the wireless printer. These things are sent to try us, and by golly they do

User Error - Reboot Required.

 

[emjay]

things can only change on my computer if I authorise it.

World domination next

 

[Bryman]

I'm now more convinced than ever that the Pause was triggered by changes at FamilySearch rather than anything on my computer.

I think that you are probably right. Once things are corrected, people tend to not own up and just react as if the problem/error never occurred.

I had a somewhat similar experience a couple of days ago when searching for a family in the 1911 UK census using FMP. I had traced the increasing number of family members for a couple of decades and was 'disappointed' when nothing appeared for 1911. I was expecting both parents and 10-12 children.

I tried looking for each member with various wild card specifications to get round transcription errors but no success until I tried . . .
First name: Rebecca (with variations enabled)
Last name: W*
DoB: 1860 +- 5 years
Other member: Edward (eldest son)

That produced a single transcription for just the mother (with full surname) and reference of 9889/211. Omitting Edward had failed to find anything and searching for any other member or the full surname resulted in nothing. Even giving just the reference resulted in nothing! So much for Peter's beta facility! However, I was able to view the hand written form and get details for the whole family to enter on My Ancestor's page.

The next morning, I carefully described the problem experienced the previous evening, ready to send to FMP, and rechecked that the situation could be reproduced only to find that everything was working correctly! I had not logged off and just left my laptop in sleep overnight.

I decided that it was not worth taking the matter any further and made a mental note that I would not struggle in future but rather go to bed early and hope for everything to be corrected by the morning.

 

[Heather]

I decided that it was not worth taking the matter any further and made a mental note that I would not struggle in future but rather go to bed early and hope for everything to be corrected by the morning.

Bryman don't you know that "things always look better in the morning"

 

[Bryman]

Bryman don't you know that "things always look better in the morning"

That's not what my wife says!

 

[Pauline]

World domination next

 

[Bob Spiers]

I think we may have to agree to disagree on this one.

Yes agreed

Thing is, I just don't see how anything could have auto-corrected - things can only change on my computer if I authorise it.

You think Pauline? I know an awful lot of IT orientated people who would disagree with you on that one. Assuming you are the Administrator (as I'm sure you are) and have a recognised Security program installed (and I know you have) yes you have nominal authority to exercise some form of control. Set the security level too high and it will impose browsing restrictions that will irritate, too low and you will be inundated to things you do not want. Of course you can choose to download/install updates as and when good and ready. You can elect to accept or reject plug ins and sundry other fixes, but to assume that is the be all and end all of things that can affect performance is I am afraid -and with great respect - naïve. You have good control but not total, you are after all dealing with a Microsoft Windows PC (or laptop) with access to the world wide web.

Even leaving aside hacking and unwanted malware and spyware not to mention so called innocent browser 'cookies' there are a myriad of things happening behind the scenes (and here I would quickly get out of my depth in even beginning to explain them all) but some things are changing all the time when the computer is active especially within the trilogy of Processes, Services & Networks and not forgetting software (like Drivers for instance) without notice can become obsolescent and affect performance. And we haven't even touched upon Hardware malfunctions

I am not patronising but declaring an obvious fact when I say you are a conscientious and knowledgeable computer user and ultra security conscious but please accept with computers -and for everyone not just you - things sometimes happen beyond your ken! (and please do not tell me your husband is not named Ken)