Can't get back to where I was in Firefox

February 17, 2007 10:49 AM

Using Firefox on some web sites, if you scroll down from the top of the page, select a link, and then hit the back arrow to return the original page, the original page does not return to where you were when you clicked the link, but annoyingly to the top of the page, requiring a manual scroll to get where you were before. This doesn't happen with IE on the same web sites. What causes this problem? For example http://sadlyno.com/ or http://seattletimes.nwsource.com
posted by ShooBoo to computers & internet (4 comments total)

I find that Firefox has a similar problem when you refresh a page, for example, mefi. You end up somewhere between the current line and end of page instead of the same line as in IE.
posted by JackFlash at 11:11 AM on February 17, 2007

Previously
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:16 AM on February 17, 2007

I think this happens when you click the link before the original page has fully finished loading. So sometimes it might just give up on returning you to your former position, and sometimes it might return you to Z pixels down the page, but when the page is actually fully loaded, that Z is somewhere else than where you were looking before.

If you're going to be doing a lot of browsing off one page, try waiting for it to load completely and see if that helps.
posted by fleacircus at 5:28 PM on February 17, 2007

I believe that I've heard that this is a bug that occurs when inline images are not given explicit dimensions, but I'm not certain if it's true with the latest versions or for which browsers.

It also occurs in the situations fleacircus describes. If any element (including things like includes for ads) remains unloaded and the throbber is still going, the expected behaviour will fail.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:56 AM on February 20, 2007