"LHC not responding due to a long-running script" message

[Madora]

Why are we plagued with the blasted "LHC not responding due to a long-running script" message. Time after time after time! Drives me loco! Would someone kindly explain (in plain non computer language) what the heck is happening! Is there anything I can do (not computer literate). I thank you!

[Timea]

it means that in order to show you the thing you want to see (somebody's post, the search results, whatever), it has to go through a long list of things: it has to find the words that people wrote and it has to write them onto the screen and stuff*. The long list of things it has to do to show you the thing, it's taking too long. maybe there is a problem in the way it was written** and the computer has to think for too long about what it means before it can do that step. or maybe there are so many people using the site at the same time, and each page they want to see has its own todo list (that's what a script is, kinda), so it takes longer to do each todo list because it's doing them all at once (computers can multitask much better than people, but even computers can have trouble if they don't have enough memory to do all the things they are being asked to do at once.)

the computer that is doing this thinking is probably not your home computer, but a special type of computer called a server which is where LHC lives. when you are on the internet and viewing LHC, your computer is talking to the LHC computer (server) and asking it to see stuff, and LHC is sending the pages to your computer for you to see them.


*there's somewhat more involved in this process, but my explanation is more metaphorical than literal

**written by the computer programmer. this is not something you can fix yourself.

[Gumball]

Adding to it, in some instances (even if it's another site), it may not be the site itself, but one of the myriad sites that you may technically connect to while visiting a particular page. For example, you also connect to Google when you see one of the Google ads on a page.

I frequently get a script issue on one particular site I visit with how they've implemented their use of the Cloudflare service, for instance. I also get an unresponsive script error now and then when I load my Thunderbird email program because of one particular add-on, but I put up with it because I like my add-ons and it doesn't take long before I get the error and things are working fine. Too lazy to manage it effectively, too.

For what it's worth, and take this with a grain of salt as I chronically run the NoScript add-on, I've never had a script related responsiveness error here. At least not in a long, long time.

[Madora]

Thank you so much, Timea and Gumball, for your explanations. I guess I'll have to be more patient.

I guess I was extremely irked also because it took 5 minutes to actually post my query. I'd type and nothing would appear in the box. Talk about frustrating.

[Timea]

I haven't gotten it on this site before, but on other sites, sometimes it helps to close and reopen my browser (first saving the text you want to write in notepad or word or something)

[Madora]

I haven't gotten it on this site before, but on other sites, sometimes it helps to close and reopen my browser (first saving the text you want to write in notepad or word or something)

Thanks for this tip, Timea. I'll have to make a note of it. Sometimes I change browsers, hoping things will run faster. Of late, LHC (or its server) has been very slow. Thank goodness it doesn't last all that long.

[Timea]

Thanks for this tip, Timea. I'll have to make a note of it. Sometimes I change browsers, hoping things will run faster. Of late, LHC (or its server) has been very slow. Thank goodness it doesn't last all that long.

Yes, sometimes LHC is slow and won't load for me. When that happens, I stop trying and doing something else for a while, because if it is slow because of too many people trying to look at it, then my trying again and again and again won't help. It is usually enough to just try 5-10 minutes later for me.