If our website suddenly begins behaving “differently” from what you've normally experienced, there are several things that may be going on. Some of the possibilities are listed below:
One of the first things to try when you experience “strange” behavior with any website is to clear your browser's temporary file cache. Here are some links to websites that contain instructions for clearing your cache:
There are several settings that can dramatically alter the way StockCharts.com works on your computer. Correcting these settings will hopefully restore the website's functionality to normal on your browser.
For example, our website relies on JavaScript to perform much of its work. If you have disabled the JavaScript setting in your browser, our website will not work correctly at all.
Similarly, we rely on web cookies to control access to the member areas of the website. If you disable or unduly restrict our access to web cookies, our website will not work correctly.
In general, our website assumes that you are using the “Default” settings for your web browser (or something very close to the default settings). If you are seeing problems, check your browser settings and make sure no unusual settings are being used.
This //wikiHow// article has detailed instructions on how to enable cookies for popular browsers.
As a test, try using a different web browser and see if the problem happens with that browser. Here are links to some of the major alternative browsers that are available for free:
If the problem occurs when using one browser but not when using the others, that would indicate that you should check the settings, plug-ins and extensions of the browser that has the problem.
If the problem occurs on all browsers, it may be one of the issues listed below.
If your computer is experiencing issues connecting to our website, you may see some unexpected behaviors occur, such as incomplete page loads.
If this is the case, try checking our Twitter feed for problem reports. If you don't see anything reported, it is probably a temporary issue in your local Internet service area and should clear up soon. If it continues for several days, you may need to work with your ISP to get the issue resolved.
For the more adventurous and technically savvy readers out there, one thing to try is to switch your DNS server settings to point to a more reliable DNS provider. For more information, please see our article on Using OpenDNS.
Learn More: Slow Website Performance
If our servers stop working, you will definitely see some unusual behavior when you try to use our site. When there is a problem, the first place we will post information about the problem is on our Twitter feed.
If you have several plug-ins installed in your browser - e.g., toolbars, search boxes, etc. - then it is possible that one of them may be responsible for the problems you are seeing. For example, some plug-ins prevent legitimate pop-up boxes from appearing on your screen. Other plug-ins insert intrusive ads onto our pages.
If you see new, unexpected behavior from our website, try disabling your browser plug-ins (especially any new ones you have recently added). Alternately, if you aren't sure how to disable your plug-ins, try a clean installation of a different web browser, such as Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome.
Security programs installed on your computer like Norton, McAfee or Kaspersky can also interfere with our website. Make sure that you add “StockCharts.com” to the “whitelist” area(s) of your security program(s) to prevent problems.
Malware is relatively rare, but if your computer is infected with malware, this can cause strange behavior. For example, if you suddenly see lots of popup ads on our website, it is probably coming from some malware on your computer. (We deliberately do not include pop-up ads on our website.) Be sure to scan your computer regularly for malware to prevent this from occurring.
We are constantly improving our website. Most of the time, the changes we make are relatively small and constrained to a limited part of the site; however, occasionally we need to make bigger changes that can seem “strange” at first. When these new features are first released, you may need some time to adjust to them and learn how to use them. When we make these kinds of changes, we will generally post articles about them in the ChartWatchers newsletter, so be sure to subscribe to keep up with all the improvements we make.