Back button loop in chrome?

November 17, 2011 9:52 AM

Infinite back button loop in chrome?

Click a comment from recent activity, post reply in thread. Try clicking the back button multiple times.

You get into an infinite loop between:

http://metatalk.metafilter.com/21204/threadshitters-trolls-and-FPPs-in-general#946349

and

http://metatalk.metafilter.com/21204/threadshitters-trolls-and-FPPs-in-general#commentpreview.

This is in vanilla chrome.

I don't know if it happens in other browsers, i haven't tested.

posted by empath to Bugs at 9:52 AM (15 comments total)

I'm not 100% sure on those urls, i closed the window to get out of it and didn't copy the urls first.
posted by empath at 9:52 AM on November 17, 2011

Yeah, we've had one other report of this and I've looked into it a bit. This happens on every site, not just MetaFilter. So I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it. It looks like the problem is at the browser level to me.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:58 AM on November 17, 2011

To work around it you can hold the back button to get a list of your previous pages and choose one from the list.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:58 AM on November 17, 2011

I've experienced this, too, using Chrome. It does seem like Google's problem, and not Mefi's.
posted by General Tonic at 9:59 AM on November 17, 2011

Interesting. I've never had the problem on any other site and i post on other sites, a lot. Is it a problem with two hash tag links sequentially?
posted by empath at 10:00 AM on November 17, 2011

Here's how you can reproduce it at any site: 1.) go to another site and load a page. 2.) add a hash + string to the end of the URL in the address bar, click return/Enter to load. 3.) Now remove the hash from the url, click return/Enter to load. 4.) click the back button again and again and again. You should loop between the hashed and non-hashed pages infinitely as you click the button.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:02 AM on November 17, 2011

Is it a problem with two hash tag links sequentially?

The hash is definitely part of the problem, but I can't tell why exactly.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:03 AM on November 17, 2011

I've seen this too on a few websites. All very recently. Having to access the history to go back.

Remember when a lot of websites did this? It really stunk, and people complained, and I seem to recall some browsers getting an option which would prevent websites from disabling the back button. Hmm. Guess those days are back.
posted by zomg at 10:44 AM on November 17, 2011

I reported this back in January. I have to right click on the back button and go further back than the last couple of pages to break out of it.
posted by crunchland at 11:40 AM on November 17, 2011

I, too, have had this problem in Chrome.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:55 PM on November 17, 2011

Yeah, I get this. So easy to get around via the right-click-select page option I've never bothered reporting it.
posted by Decani at 2:12 PM on November 17, 2011

Just made a change here in MetaTalk that should work around this. After you post a comment, the site sends you back to the thread without the link stub in the URL. So it looks like a completely new URL to the browser. That seems to keep this from happening. If it works reliably here in MetaTalk for a while I'll move it out to the other sites.

It's not ideal because we'd rather not officially use URLs without link stubs, but I think it's worth it to clear up this annoyance.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:23 PM on November 17, 2011

Test
posted by 6550 at 6:23 PM on November 17, 2011

Infinite back-button on the Big Chrome Dogma.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:56 PM on November 17, 2011

Ditto. I've seen this on a bunch of sites.
posted by schmod at 6:20 AM on November 18, 2011