Site Meter causing Internet Explorer failure
Tech : Duncan Riley
Posted: August 1, 2008

Traffic measuring tool Sitemeter is blocking users of Internet Explorer from accessing sites using the service.

According to a tip to The Inquisitr, the problem happens when anybody using Internet Explorer tries to open any sites with the Site Meter code present, and thousands of websites/blogs have been shut off from IE users, including PerezHilton.com and blogs in the Gawker Media stable.

Users of Internet Explorer receive the following message when visiting any site with Site Meter installed:

Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http://www.nameofsite.com
Operation aborted

A search using Google Blog Search found that the issue is widespread, and the only known solution at this time being to remove the SiteMeter embed code from the website or blog. Notably users of Firefox, Safari and other browsers are not affected by the issue.

So far, Sitemeter has made no official statement. More if we get it.

Update: thx to Steve Hodson of WinExtra, a pic of the issue in the wild:

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  • August 1, 2008 at 11:28 pm Duncan Riley
    @louisgray, you're the only person I know running Site Meter, you might want to pull it
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:30 pm ouriel
    no. not the only one. and i am pretty happy with it both on my blog and techcrunch france
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:31 pm Louis Gray
    That is interesting. Browser statistics show IE to be very small as a result, of course. http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s15lgraycom&r=13
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:32 pm Louis Gray
    I would assume this issue would be short-lived, right?
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:32 pm Duncan Riley
    Ouriel, any reports of the issue on your end? There's plenty on G Blog Search but ppl seem to only be finding out about it now
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:33 pm Bjorn Tipling
    sounds like a bad ie bug
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:34 pm Kevin Bondelli
    IE is a bad bug.
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:34 pm Duncan Riley
    I was tempted in saying that ppl should tell their readers to not use IE, but it's a bit hard when they can't even get to your site to read the message :-)
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:35 pm faboo mama
    tee-hee, maybe this will get people to stop using that craptastic browser. and i use sitemeter of 6 of my 8 sites...so people are using it.
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:35 pm Bjorn Tipling
    How's the Inquistr going for you Duncan? Good I hope, I like it
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:36 pm Duncan Riley
    thx Bjorn. Getting there. Nothing like trying an unproven mix in a super crowded space. Easy is boring :-)
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:36 pm Steven Hodson
    @Duncan I just an email from someone as a News Tip about this suggesting that no-one was talking about it yet your's is the second or third mention I've seen of it tonight :)
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:40 pm Steven Hodson
    @Louis http://screencast.com/t/GkBpNNlE0w you might want to hope so .. but then nobody uses IE7 any more right?
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:40 pm Duncan Riley
    Steven, I couldn't find any blogs I knew talking about it (least when I wrote the post) but I did find some obscure ones on GBlogsearch. My guess is time of night, day etc are factors that many people haven't noticed it yet. I'm firing up VMWare fusion now to see if I can replicate it
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:41 pm Louis Gray
    Steven's screenshot nails it. Maybe he'll let you borrow the graphic for your article. :-) (And on a personal note, the best thing about Sitemeter is that I've "always" had it running since Dec. 2005. But I do have Google Analytics as well.)
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:43 pm Bwana McCall
    I'm a bit stubborn, but I don't pull features based on IE issues. I have the a Wordpress plugin to tell IE users to upgrade to Firefox :P
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:46 pm Steven Hodson
    @Duncan Problogger is one http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/08/02/sitemeter-crashing-sites-when-viewed-with-ie7/ .. if your want you can use the graphic but to clarify that was in FeedDemon which uses the IE engine
  • August 1, 2008 at 11:58 pm Duncan Riley
    Steven, just hit my GReader now with Darren.
  • August 2, 2008 at 12:00 am Duncan Riley
    Steve, added screen shot, with credit + thx
  • August 2, 2008 at 12:13 am Steven Hodson
    glad to help out :) (thx for the credit - appreciated)
  • August 2, 2008 at 12:14 am Colby Olson
    Is that your windows theme Steven? Interesting. :)
  • August 2, 2008 at 12:15 am Duncan Riley
    Colby, I was thinking the same thing. Steven...
  • August 2, 2008 at 12:20 am Steven Hodson
    @colby it's theme using Stardock's new MyColors http://www.winextra.com/2008/07/23/mycolors-from-stardock/
  • August 2, 2008 at 9:25 am Louis Gray
    Solution here: http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/08/fix-internet-explorer-7-with-sitemeter.html
  • August 2, 2008 at 12:32 pm Daniel Whitt
    Looks like the vendor just posted a response: http://weblog.sitemeter.com/2008/08/02/sitemeter-ie-issues-resolved/
  • August 2, 2008 at 12:41 pm Steven Hodson
    nice spin considering that this is a well known problem that any web developer should know about
  • August 2, 2008 at 12:43 pm Bwana McCall
    Sounds like they admitted their mistake...I don't see any spin
  • August 2, 2008 at 12:47 pm Steven Hodson
    maybe spin was the wrong word but given that this is a known problem it begs the question - didn't these people do any testing at all? .. and who signed off on the upgrade in taht case - there was never any need whatsoever for this to have happened

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