Why is one item remaining, waiting for DU

[madokie]

continue to show when I'm on DU and this is with the progress bar in the status bar just stopped. Acting like its waiting for something to download. This is something that has just started since I've been googling for a solution to my boat problem. Would this be indicative of my picking up some nastie as I've trolled around looking for a solution to that? It's no big deal it just bugs me that this has started and I can't figure it out.
TIA

[canetoad]

1. Maybe something to do with

the things that load with the DU pages:

Google analytics (maybe it's Michael Jackson's fault)
clearspring.com
addthis.com
blogads.com

[madokie]

2. Would that just start happening

I was never seeing the progress bar just hanging there before a few days ago

[2Design]

3. I have had some things hang today - n/t

[oldliberal]

4. Progress bar hanging

I have had the same problem for a few days. It occurs on the discussion threads but not on the main pages such as the latest or greatest pages. It keeps waiting for 1 item to load from DU.

[madokie]

6. That's what is going on here

Thanks, it had me worried that I may have some malware on my machine.

[madokie]

11. It's still happening here, days later

If I log out of du then the problem goes away but I can't take the ads so I log back in and there it is hanging again. WTF is causing this???? :grr: When I use ubuntu and firefox I don't see this problem, it's only with ie8 and xp and that is my OS and browser of choice

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated but telling me to switch to and start using firefox and ubuntu is not the help I'm looking for

tia

Add: here is what is showing in the status bar,
(1 item remaining) waiting for http.www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address

[RoyGBiv]

5. It's clearspring.com

It happens occasionally.

[madokie]

7. Thanks Roy

I'm really sensitive to having malware/spyware on my machine so this had me worried and when I ran malwarebytes it didn't find anything so that really spooked me. I now feel I can quit worrying. :hi:

[RoyGBiv]

8. Several things can do it ...

Most often it is the upload.democraticunderground.com server, which is where the avatars are stored, hanging.

You'll also witness this behavior in pic heavy threads or in multiple threads that are all posting the same pic when the server that holds them is having issues.

When I checked just a bit ago, it was clearspring that was hanging for me.

[madokie]

9. How do I check on my end to see what it is?

I think that is something I should know how to do but for some reason I don't, hopefully soon I will. :hi:

[RoyGBiv]

10. Depends on what it is ...

The vast majority of the time, I simply see it in the lower left corner of Firefox's status bar. It'll say connecting/downloading/waiting ... some host.

I also have a little app I run in a shell that keeps track of all open connections on my network, and when something weird is happening, I'll consult it to see if something is stuck. Then I'll ping/trace that host to see if there's lag somewhere. There's an equivalent OpenSource Windows app. I've used it, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is and haven't been able to find it. Having a brain fart moment over here.

As I said, here, it's usually upload.democraticunderground.com. I don't know what that server has connection problems more than the main was does, but it does, at least for me. The lag is usually one hope away from the destination, within the server farm that serves DU. Other than that, and relevant to most sites, it's usually some ad server, photobucket/imageshack, or something else along those lines.

There was one site I frequented for awhile that had an ad server that was always timing out, and the way they'd set up the page, parts of the damn thing wouldn't even load until after the ad had loaded. When I started using AdBlock and NoScript and blocked those IPs from ever being contacted, this problem basically went away.