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Populi's not working right. Is my browser the problem?

Sometimes you may run into problems with Populi that are actually problems with your web browser. Here are some troubleshooting tips and tricks that can help you diagnose and solve browser troubles.

First things first: make sure your browser has been updated

If your browser is old and outdated, lots of web pages won't work properly (and you'll be more vulnerable to hackers and other scum). Here are the links to the most up-to-date versions of the browsers that we support:

Next, try emptying your browser’s cache

A browser cache stores certain website elements so it doesn't have to re-load them each time you visit a site. Sometimes, if one of those elements has been changed, the browser loads the cached version and the site doesn't work properly. Clearing the cache can force recently updated sites to work properly. Browsers may refer to the cache by different names—Browsing Data or Recent History are a couple. The help sites for each of the four supported browsers should have instructions for clearing the cache...

Extensions and add-ons

These can be trouble, especially with Firefox. They can mess with otherwise-normal sites. One way to test this is to try other browsers that you don't normally use (see above for links). If everything is working in an add-on free browser, add-ons are the likely culprit.

Still having trouble?

If clearing your cache didn't work, here are a few other things to troubleshoot:

Is the rest of the Internet working for you, or not? Try visiting some other sites; if you can't get them to open or work properly, you may have a basic Internet connection problem.

  • If those sites work, maybe it is our problem. We announce service outages and major problems on Twitter. If it's at that point, we're already hard at work on the problem.
  • If those sites don't work, you may have a DNS issue. DNS maps internet domain names to IP addresses—it lets servers talk to each other over the internet. Google Public DNS and Open DNS may prove helpful.

Anti-virus and firewall settings might be the problem. If problems persist no matter what browser you use, you may need to disable your anti-virus software. Corrupted or incomplete software can cause general Internet connectivity problems. If you have a firewall set up, you could temporarily disable it to see if that's the issue.

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