A bug in the popular metrics-tracking platform Sitemeter has boxed Internet Explorer users into a quiet little corner of the internet since late yesterday afternoon. Any site using Sitemeter now displays the following cryptic message to IE users: “Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site – Operation aborted.” The bug affects IE 5.5, 6, and 7, but we have three ways—including use another browser!—to restore access to the full internet in all its horrible glory, inside. (Note: we’ve put in a fix so IE users can continue to read Consumerist without changing their settings.)
The Internet Explorer developer’s forum has developed one solution:
Here is the fix for users of IE 6 and 7 who are getting the “operation aborted” message.
Follow These Steps Exactly:
- Open Internet Explorer.
- Click on the menu Tools -> Internet Options.
- Click on the tab Security.
- Click on the icon Restricted Sites.
- Click on the button Sites.
- Under Add this website to the zone:
Type the text ‘ *.sitemeter.com ’ (with asterisk and dot & without the quotes).- Click the Add button. Click Close. Click OK.
All sites will work again without error messages coming up.
IE users can also bypass the Sitemeter bug by accessing sites through RSS. Here are our feeds:
- Full Content (with ads)
- Partial Content (no ads)
- Comments
And our author-specific feeds:
Finally—and IE users should do this anyway and then take a cleansing shower—download Firefox. Quickly become a power user by visiting our ever-organized sister-site Lifehacker.
Worst of all, Sitemeter hasn’t acknowledged the problem. Patching the bug and pretending this never happened isn’t a winning damage control strategy. We don’t need a lengthy explanation, but “Whoops, we broke the internet,” would be nice.
Web Sites Using SiteMeter Are Crashing with Internet Explorer [Wired]
Re: Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site – Operation aborted [MSDN Forums]
Firefox [Mozilla]
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here is my solution to this problem:
I don’t visit those sites until THEY fix it..
Has this problem on several websites last night. Switched to Safari and have had no problems. I hope to see a new mac sitting on my desk soon.
@Jim (The Canuck One):
The programmer in me assumes that they simply introduced IE to standards-compliant code, which made IE freak the hell out.
@PunditGuy:
Actually, IE6 and IE7, combined, accounted for about 53% of browser usage in June. FFx accounted for 41%, Safari for 2.6% and Opera for 1.7%, according to [www.w3schools.com] . On the sites I run, it’s been closer to 45% (IE6/7) 44% (FF2/3) and 8% (Saf).
Then still, if code does not work with the majority of the browsers out there, don’t blame the users!
And dont forget that IE users who go away will not be counted. Doesn’t revenue for this site depend on page and ad views?
It’s simple …. the software was not properly tested before released. all ire should be directed toward Sitemeter.
As a kudos to Sitemeter, I use Firefox and didn’t notice the issue until someone brought it to my attention. I emailed their support last night and just received this email back:
AAAAH..I was wondering why I couldnt get to the Consumerist last night
This happened to me on like 6 different websites, I thought IE got currupted and I was like noooooo! I have to make sure this site I am working on is compatible with IE!
Wait a minute. Could I blame this glitch for the sitemeter stats on my pro blog taking a nosedive yesterday? Does this mean that I don’t actually suck, but a bunch of people couldn’t get to my blog? Because that would be a tremendous relief.
Hmm I didn’t notice anything.
Firefox I don’t like because it doesn’t let me accept session cookies while turning away all others. Not last time I checked anyway.
@kittenfoo: I spent a huge amount of time last night working fix for this on all my sites that use site meter (most of them). Move the site meter code to just before the closing body tag. That fixed it on most of my sites. On one site, I did have to remove the site meter code entirely.
Firefox 3 crashes all the time. I have one buddy that gave up and went back to IE. And maybe this is fixed? Consumerist loads fine in IE7.
At this point, if you’re still using IE6 you pretty much deserve whatever the hell happens to you and your computer.
@sharkd: The programmer in me assumes that they simply introduced IE to standards-compliant code, which made IE freak the hell out.
You’re closer to the answer than you realize.
For every major step forward in Internet coding standards, IE6 looks more and more like some jackhole in a Model-T on the freeway. Everyone usually bits the bullet and slows down, but occasionally you have someone who actually needs to get somewhere that’ll inadvertently crash into the thing.
@Squeegoth:
Uh, read it again. You add it to RESTRICTED SITES not trusted. Probably to prevent sitemeter from even getting to load.
To compare to a hypothetical situation, think of a TV station helping you to use TiVo to skip ads because one of the ads they show causes your TV to switch off. Not quite the same since this is tracking not ads, but both are things that benefit them. Also this solution is free and easy.
And seriously, still using IE is just sad. Worst piece of shit ever created (unless compared with Netscape 4.x). From both a user’s perspective AND web developer’s perspective.
i noticed this on my housemate’s laptop earlier today – thought nothing of it just that for some bizarre reason they had gawker sites blocked! Firefox works A-OK as always for me though!!
@PunditGuy:
It doesn’t help that Microsoft has a KB article on what causes this and how you can not cause it by properly building your site.
It isn’t Microsoft’s fault that broken code breaks the browser. The difference is that Firefox/Opera/etc ignore the broken code, while IE parses it.
The browser shouldn’t have to make up for poor development and QA by being overly generous in handling bad code.
@BillyShears:
IE8 is STRICTLY standards-compliant, so why don’t all your “Works in Firefox!” “standards-’compliant’” sites work in it?
If you really want to test your website, run it through IE8. No shims, no shortcuts, no workarounds. IE8 parses exactly what you’ve written, and displays it exactly according to the standards as designed.
Oh, and sitemeter is incredibly standards compliant!
[validator.w3.org]
@snoop-blog: Oh, I have no restrictions on websites either. They’d make my job kind of hard. I just can’t install anything, and due to the way things are set up, Firefox on a flash drive isn’t an option. Que pain.
@RvLeshrac: No.
Firefox will report broken code like it should, but unlike IE6 it won’t bring down the entire freakin’ browser (which is what the error message in this Consumerist post could potentially do.
It’s also not the most helpful message in the world, not to developers or end-users.
“Oh, great. *Something* in the hundreds of lines of code I just wrote is making IE choke. No, no, it’s okay. I’ll find it myself, IE. Don’t worry!”
@sharkd:
RTFA. If you’re going to cite some numbers, at least scroll down to make sure they don’t have the following that basically blows your point to hell.
W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.
These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.
Oops.
@RvLeshrac: Firefox makes no claim to be 100% standards compliant. Nor should IE8, because there are known gaps in the standards, particularly since it doesn’t pass Acid3 and Beta 1 fails Acid2 when done on the “wrong” site.
@WEGGLES90: You should do what I did at work for my co-workers. I installed Firefox, but changed the icon to that of IE. That way, they (along with IT support) can look for the big E they know and love, but get a less dangerous web. I deleted the actual IE icon and did the same in the Start Menu and Quick Launch bar to prevent accidental problems.
What’s up with people complaining about the text though? I’m guessing you don’t have ClearType configured properly. IIRC, IE uses font smoothing by default, but ideally you would have it in every application.
IE share of Web browsers is about 75%
Mozilla FF is at 20%
[en.wikipedia.org]
@glorpy:
I’m quite glad Acid2 fails when performed using the wrong URL, since this means IE8′s security is working as designed.
Acid3 does not currently count, as it uses future standards which are still subject to change.
And, yes, IE8 in Standards Mode was designed from the ground-up to be 100% standards compliant. You have to turn it on, however, which was a wise idea considering the large number of websites which use broken code. The only hiccup, as earlier, involves cross-site and cross-domain security – which is no big deal, because I don’t want content from another domain, or another site, interacting with the current site. That’s where many of our current security holes come from.
Where is the problem? This is not a bug, it’s a feature!
Use Firefox (or Opera)!
Currently use IE7, downloaded Firefox 3.
@RvLeshrac: Still no, because IE shouldn’t be disregarding the inner object just because the outer one used an invalid URL, but was otherwise syntactically correct.
And much of Acid3 does count: DOM, DOM2, Unicode, SVG, HTML4, etc. At this point, only CSS3 and downloadable fonts are still works in progress, so a standards compliant browser out to be passing most of the tests right now.
I’m not telling people to jump away from IE7, as annoying as I may find that browser. But there’s no reason to suffer through IE6 or earlier.
Still for all the shoddy sites out there, IE8 will default to its truer Standards Mode (compared to IE7′s quirky standards mode), so those sites will break again unless they learned their lesson from IE7.