Ubuntu

Many web pages not loading or rendering (multiple browsers)

Asked by Yesac Tharlaw

Having problems with a brand new Ubuntu 10.10 install - a lot of web pages aren't loading properly, as though they're not rendering the stylesheets or something. Can't find any rhyme or reason to it - Facebook and many sites work fine, but many are broken - Youtube just loads text-only without any formatting, pictures, or video; Amazon shows the correct page formatting but no images; Lifehacker gives only a line of text and a broken image; Twitter is just text with no images or formatting.

I'd be inclined to blame the browser, but it looks the same on Firefox, Chrome, and Midori. My Windows and Mac machines look fine, and resetting the router didn't help. Obviously clearing the browser cache failed, but that's expected given the problem started the first time I booted Ubuntu and there was no cache!

I'm a solid Windows/Mac user but a Ubuntu newb, and this thing is driving me nuts. Help please!

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Emre AYTAÇ (eaytac) said : 		#1

Have you installed "Ubuntu restricted extras"? Please install it from Applications - Ubuntu Software Center.

Or you can simply install it from terminal. Open terminal (press Ctrl-Alt-T), then write the following command to install ubuntu restricted extras. (type your password when it asked)
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

After that, close - reopen your browser and test the web sites again. Hope this helps...

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Yesac Tharlaw (caseymightycasey) said : 		#2

No luck on that, but thanks. So far my Great Linux Experiment is a bit of a letdown as it turns out the web is fairly critical for a desktop OS nowadays. Yar...

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#3

The mentioned pages need java script enabled.
Another shut in the blue may be to disable visual effects, to see if video card or compiz is the culprit.
System preferences -> appearance -> visual effects = None.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Video

To exclude extension issues or else run Firefox in safe mode via CLI:
firefox -safe-mode

It will deactivate plugins and else.
If it runs ok, remember what changes have been done, e.g. recently installed plugins or extensions.
In case rename profile, before that close FF, then restart after.
CLI:
mv ~/.mozilla mozilla-old

## FF will start with a standard profile now where you may successive restore extensions, bookmarks from the backup folder 'mozilla-old' which is in your /home/user.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GnomeTerminal
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe%20Mode

If non-successful, create a test-user and test the behaviour there.
If it works fine, there is a misconfiguration in main-user, again remember what changes have been made.

Verify
view -> character encoding = Unicode (UTF-8)

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/home
http://www.google.com/support/chrome/?hl=en

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