Why does FF2/Navigator 9 render this link as blank page?

[Nomen]

Can someone with knowledge of html tell me why this link: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/perk-facebook-apple-now-pay-women-freeze-eggs-n225011

is rendered as a completely blank page with Firefox 2.0.0.20 and Netscape Navigator 9? When I view the page source code, it's all there - lots of code. Yet those browsers display nothing. With FF2, I have altered the user-agent and tried several FF/OS versions, up to FF16/Win-8, and still get a blank page. (all this is with hosts file deactivated by renaming it to something else)

Opera 12.02 does seem to render the page ok. For IE6, it does load the page (and it's pretty readable, well formatted, and no advertising at all?) - but sometimes throws this error:

------------

AppName: iexplore.exe AppVer: 6.0.2800.1106 ModName: mshtml.dll

ModVer: 6.0.2800.1651 Offset: 001931a1

------------

So what are the code elements in that link that renders the page as invisible or just blank on FF2/Navigator 9? I'm seeing more and more of this behavior as I bring up news stories linked from sites like drudge.

[Tripredacus]

I would blame the web devlopers. Older browsers are not as forgiving of coding errors than newer browsers. Websites are also trending to using off-site scripts to render portions of the page. On the one you linked to, there are several iframes and even an extra /div tag sitting there. The site uses a "generic" doctype, which Validator is picking up to be HTML5. It also finds over 3,000 CSS errors. Any one of those reasons could cause the page to not display properly in a browser.

As for how to fix, use a browser that renders broken website code!

[sdfox7]

On my system, the page loads correctly in Internet Explorer 5.x and Firefox 1.x if you disable Javascript (I usually always have Javascript disabled):

http://sdfox7.com/win95/files/nbceggs.jpg

http://sdfox7.com/win95/files/nbceggs2.jpg

[jumper]

Blank in Opera 9.26 as well. Right-click "Validate" sent it to http://validator.w3.org/check# which reported "Errors found while checking this document as HTML5! Result: 46 Errors, 1 warning(s)" with additional errors suppress in some of the subtrees.

nbcnews.com doesn't seems to have a mobile version--individual apps for each of their channels.

[Tripredacus]

It is doubtful that the HTML errors are causing the page to appear blank, with the only possibility (that I can see) is the extra dive tag that is there. Even so, even an extra div tag would likely cause a partial page load, or the page design to become deformed our outside their intended boundries. Most times I have found coming across a blank page (that shouldn't be) is because I am blocking some javascript. I can do a test allow to see if it works (usually does) however then it becomes a "do I trust it or care enough about this page to allow malformed code to run on my system." And guess what, usually I just go somewhere else.

[jumper]

Now I'm at home and just tried loading it in Firefox 2.0.0.20 with Javascript and Images disabled and...It displays! (and quickly!!)

With Images enabled and no JS, it also displays but with no images. With Images and JS enabled, very long load time and then nothing. Disable JS and reload and it displays again.

[jumper]

I see now that a static version of the entire page contents is hidden in a <noscript> block. With scripting on, a dynamic version should be loaded but doesn't (I don't see any scripting errors in the error console, so I don't know why not).

We want to see the static version that is already there, so disabling javascript before loading the page or using the NoScript add-on to black-list the page should work. (I use a QuickJava button in my status bar to toggle JS; Using AdBlock Plus to block the scripts won't enable the <noscript> content.)

But for those times when you have already loaded the page (at nbcnews.com or another) with scripting enabled and nothing displays, here's a bookmarklet to instantly display the content of all <noscript> blocks:

javascript:db=document.body;db.innerHTML=db.innerHTML.split("noscript").join("div");void(0)

To create a toolbar button in Firefox for the script: drag a site icon from the addressbar to the toolbar to create a bookmark button, then edit its properties by adding the code into the location field and providing a name like "unNS" or "!noscript".

[sdfox7]

Now I'm at home and just tried loading it in Firefox 2.0.0.20 with Javascript and Images disabled and...It displays! (and quickly!!)

With Images enabled and no JS, it also displays but with no images. With Images and JS enabled, very long load time and then nothing. Disable JS and reload and it displays again.

As I stated in response #3, Firefox 1.5.0.12 worked for me with images enabled. You may want to see if images load for you in 1.5.x.

IMO there is no benefit to running 2.0.x over 1.5.x. Both are outdated browsers but 1.5 seems a bit less bloated.

[ZortMcGort11]

Page doesn't load with SeaMonkey 1.1.19 either. Turned off javascript and it works.