Problem with Wikipedia

[Australis]

These last few days, I've had an odd problem with Wikipedia.

First thing, the search button (magnifying glass) isn't working. When I click on it, it highlights but it doesn't do anything. I have to search by entering a term into the browser which either takes me to the relevant article or a bunch of options.

Second thing, instead of appearing down the side of the article, the main menu is above the article, taking up a lot of space. Looks weird.

I'm guessing there's an issue with the hypertext formatting, or whatever the kids use these days, but I din't know how to fix it. Restarting the browser (FFox) makes no difference, nor rebooting the machine (laptop).

Anyone have any suggestions?

TIA.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Dumb question?

Does it work in another browser, ie Edge or Chrome?

1) Try deleting cookies from the browser. Restart and see if it works

2) Go to User\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\LongProfileName\Storage\Default

where User is your windows UserName, and LongProfileName is the string of characters and numbers that Mozilla use to define your Firefox profile

You might have to enable hidden files in File Explorer to see the AppData directory.

Once there, delete "https+++www.wikipedia.org"

Restart browser.

 

[Australis]

Hmm, works correctly in Edge.

It's getting late here, so I'll try the rest tomorrow.

Thanks for that, @The Laughing Vulcan

 

[Australis]

@The Laughing Vulcan update: FFox need a new update. it seems a dodgy update caused the problem, but before I could fix it, another update automatically ran, and lo! It was working fine.

So thanks.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Glad it worked out. So often these days, tech problems and caused by the developers in the first place.

 

[Australis]

Update!

The problem returned. But then lines started appearing across the monitor before it faded into a grey haze. It was deader than dead. I'm guessing the drivers couldn't work properly as it was breaking down.

So I resolved to go out first thing and my second call was a 2nd hand IT place, had no joy, but as I was leaving...
"[Australis]!" It was a guy I knew, hadn't seen him in about 8 years, he worked there. He asked why I was there, told him, he said, "Hang on a minute." They also had an ewaste place next door. He rummaged around, found a monitor, tested it, didn't work. Found a TV with a HDMI socket, tested, worked fine. Said to the guy in charge, "Do me old mate a solid." The guy said, "$30". Pretty clear picture, 1.5 times bigger than the previous one, I'm stoked! I was prepared $50-80, though I couldn't really afford it, so I'm a happy guy! Thing was, if I had called in when I was going to, I would have missed me old mate.

Thank you, Universe! You came through!

 

[Australis]

Another update. Things still weren't going right. It's an old laptop now, about seven years old, and the only updating that had happened was when it updated itself from Win10 to Win11, three years ago. Very laggy, very slow, tendency to crash. So I bit the bullet and did a partial format. Dell has some good onboard tools to reformat the system, and the reformat is halfway to a factory reset. Wiped all apps, some data, but I had fortunately found an old external drive which took the bulk of my stuff. It took the best part of 2 days to do the format and software reinstall, but it's running so much better now.

Still the odd problem. Leave FB open and unattended for half an hour, it tends to freeze the browser (FFox) and the only solution is a hard reboot. Apps and browser sometimes randomly lag. But compared to where it was, it's so much better.

If I strike too many more problems, I'll do a full factory reset and see how that goes.

 

[Australis]

Yet another update. Wow, it is running SO much better now! After the first partial restore, a whole bunch of updates ran over the following week and each time it got a little faster and more stable, and now seems close to original speed.

Just one hiccup. Leave FB open in FFox for half an hour, and it locks everything up so hard it needs a hard reboot, but everything else is fine. After some thought, I opened MSEdge and opened just FB. Man it is even faster there! I left it open there overnight and it's still fast. So I have Edge open just for FB, and FFox for everything else. It's all so good now. All I have to do now is find a copy of Office2003 and install just Word, which doesn't ask for a product key (seemingly regarding it as a glorified Notepad). And before anyone asks, I know Word03 really well, and can't stand the Ribbon in later versions. I will also point out GRRM still uses WordStar, and has a tech on standby just for that.

So far, so good...

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Yet another update. Wow, it is running SO much better now! After the first partial restore, a whole bunch of updates ran over the following week and each time it got a little faster and more stable, and now seems close to original speed.

Just one hiccup. Leave FB open in FFox for half an hour, and it locks everything up so hard it needs a hard reboot, but everything else is fine. After some thought, I opened MSEdge and opened just FB. Man it is even faster there! I left it open there overnight and it's still fast. So I have Edge open just for FB, and FFox for everything else. It's all so good now. All I have to do now is find a copy of Office2003 and install just Word, which doesn't ask for a product key (seemingly regarding it as a glorified Notepad). And before anyone asks, I know Word03 really well, and can't stand the Ribbon in later versions. I will also point out GRRM still uses WordStar, and has a tech on standby just for that.

So far, so good...

Small warning, Word in Office 2003 doesn't like Windows 11 (The spellcheck's broken). The rest works okay. I found out the hard way when I bought a new desktop to replace my overheating Windows 10 laptop.

So now I've had that laptop repaired so I can use that for spellchecking the documents I write on my desktop.

 

[Australis]

Thanks for that. I don't recall ever having a problem maybe because I installed the FileFormatConverter and associated files, but I shall definitely need to keep an eye on that. Maybe because my laptop was originally Win10 when I bought it, and it upgraded itself 3-4 years later, with no problems that I can recall. Thanks again.

 

[Australis]

OK, a tangent.

When viewing some... uuhhhhh... research material ... I found Safe Search was on. Logging into my various Google accounts, it's saying something else has control of that. It may be admin, but I'm not sure now how to get into admin login. I would like to turn it off, as it does limit a range of searches, and not just the obvious.

To access it, in each Google acct, I would log into my separate email accts, open a tab into Google, go to the bottom right corner of the screen and select SS.