Betrayed by Mozilla!

February 16, 2006 12:05 PM

Mozilla browsers suddenly stop reading my css: wtf?

I have a small, ColdFusion-based site that I update infrequently, but did not develop. My last change to the site was 2/7; everything was working fine in all browsers at that point. As of today it appears that Firefox and Netscape have stopped reading the CSS file, although it still looks fine in IE.

Apparently the host company made some tweaks on 2/14 to IIS to fix a problem with our custom 404 page not showing up, but they carefully looked through all their settings this morning and had no explanations to offer.

Anyone ever have this problem before? And what are your thoughts about what the root of this problem might be?

Many thanks in advance!

posted by missmobtown to computers & internet (7 comments total)

In FF 1.5 or later, CSS errors show up in the javascript console as errors.

From the main menu: Tool|Javascript Console


Check this, see if your css has errors.
posted by orthogonality at 12:07 PM on February 16, 2006

Probably a MIME type issue.
posted by Firas at 12:07 PM on February 16, 2006

Put your CSS file location in the address bar, load it, then go to Tools|Page info, check under the 'type' field.
posted by Firas at 12:09 PM on February 16, 2006

This is the error I get:

Error: The stylesheet http://www.sideman.com/css/screen.css was not loaded because its MIME type, "application/octet-stream", is not "text/css".

I'm still using 1.0.7 -- why would this issue just be showing up *now*, out of the blue?
posted by missmobtown at 12:41 PM on February 16, 2006

Well, because something on the server side changed recently. Maybe the stylesheet was cached for a bit so it didn't hit the HTTP issue until a bit after the server side change.

It's not a Mozilla problem; the issue is on your end. It's not a big deal: just tell your hosting company or whoever your technical person is to set the .css mime type to text/css.
posted by Firas at 12:50 PM on February 16, 2006

Ironically enough, the Mozilla behavior is how it should be. IE is the one who is erroring by allowing it to work still.
posted by charmston at 3:30 PM on February 16, 2006

charmstom: you're right, of course.

Firas: thanks! you nailed it.
posted by missmobtown at 12:36 PM on February 17, 2006