Did Skinner mode just stop working for anyone else? It suddenly is in Default mode, not Skinner mode. UPDATE - fixed

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Thu Nov 16, 2023, 10:55 AM - Edit history (1)

UPDATE - See EarlG's reply 33 below, and my reply 32, to deal with this formatting problem.


I switched the settings to Default and then to Night mode, and I could see the change to Night mode, but going back to Skinner mode just has the board in Default mode.

[tblue37]

1. I am using Skinner mode (on my Kindle). It is working.

[highplainsdem]

5. I'm on my Fire tablet now and do have Skinner mode here. But not on

my Chromebook.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I'm using my desktop computer and Skinner mode is working fine.

Skinner mode is also working on my iPhone.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Thank you! I just checked to see if it somehow got turned off. DU suddenly looks very foreign to me.

[highplainsdem]

6. Yeah, it was an instant switch. But on my tablet I still have Skinner mode, though

not on my Chromebook.

What device are you using?

[Rhiannon12866]

7. I'm on my laptop - and all of a sudden everything started looking very different.

So I checked and Skinner Mode is still checked.

[Glamrock]

4. Mine is still working

Good luck

[2naSalit]

8. About ten minutes ago...

I had opened a bunch of tabs and when I looked at them the formatting was gone. I closed them all and waited a few minutes and everything was fine. It's happened a couple times before.



ETA: I'm using dark mode.

[Rhiannon12866]

13. I finally restarted my laptop, but when I came back everything was still weird.

[highplainsdem]

14. Same here.

[lapfog_1]

9. me too

was working until just now... skinner mode not working. I went to my stuff account settings, changed to another mode, saved, went back and set to skinner mode, saved. quit DU, back now... no skinner mode

[highplainsdem]

10. I'm back using my Chromebook - DU4 is too hard to use on my tablet - and even after rebooting, I still

have Default mode even though Skinner mode is checked.

[Eugene]

11. I experienced that using one browser, but not others.

It happened a few weeks ago on Brave browser. No problems with Chrome or Firefox.
Clearing the cache didn't work. IIRC, logging out and back on didn't fix it either,
but the problem eventually went away by itself. No problems since.

[highplainsdem]

12. Well, I hope this goes away soon. DU4's Default mode lets me see almost nothing of the board compared to Skinner

mode, let alone DU3, with so much white space and so much of the screen taken up by that huge navigation bar.

[Rhiannon12866]

15. Yes, that's what it looks like to me now, too. I'm disoriented.

[highplainsdem]

16. Me, too.

DU4 has some interesting glitches...

[Rhiannon12866]

18. It hurts my eyes now. That's what my friend who is also on DU said when we first switched.

I tried switching out of Skinner Mode, clicking on all the other choices, then choosing Skinner Mode again, but it made no difference.

[highplainsdem]

22. DU4 definitely seems to cause more eyestrain than DU3.

The white Democratic Underground logo against the black background is particularly glaring. So much that it distracts from the page below.

[Rhiannon12866]

23. I've got all these big things highlighted and blinking at me, it wasn't that way in Skinner Mode earlier

And, like you said, lots of glaring white space.

[sheshe2]

17. My understanding is that night mode doesn't work on DU3.

Could that be messing things up for you? It’s one of the reasons I haven’t tried to go back to DU3…my eyes can’t handle all the white.

[Rhiannon12866]

19. What the problem is, which is affecting me as well, is that Skinner Mode suddenly went away.

Ad it's still checked, since I made sure.

[sheshe2]

20. Got it, thanks.

I am on my pad…will try and see if it works.

[highplainsdem]

21. Do you mean Skinner mode, sheshe? Since it looks a bit like DU3, but isn't. You're right that there is no

Night mode in Skinner mode. The sudden switch changed the board I'm seeing to Default mode, but I can change it to Night mode if I want to. I generally don't like Night mode, but there is definitely too much white space with Default mode, so it's glaring.

Skinner mode is less glaring than Default mode, but still not as helpful for avoiding eyestrain as DU3 was.

[sheshe2]

24. I just tried to switch to take a look see.

Skinner mode is in faded black lettering and doesn’t let me even try it. I can’t click on to it only default which is DU4 in white.

Sorry….maybe I am not understanding it all.

[highplainsdem]

27. Sheshe, I'm guessing you're using large fonts, and with that setting you can't use Skinner mode.

I just tested that and Skinner mode does show up in faded lettering then.

[sheshe2]

29. Yep, I was.

Corrected and switched over. It seemed to be working on my ipad. Ha…took me a few minutes to figure out how to get back.
It does look more like the old DU but honestly, for me, all the white hurts my eyes.

Please stick around, we need you here.

[highplainsdem]

31. I'm still seeing Default mode on my Chromebook this morning. :( Haven't checked the tablet yet, but

I was able to use Skinner mode there with no problem last night, and I don't expect that to have changed.

>Please stick around, we need you here.

Thanks...but don't worry that I'm planning to leave DU. I love this site.

I just want it to work better for everybody. Which is why I hope we can get to a point where it is working a lot better for those using phones here, since that was a goal of the redesign - while not creating problems for others, compared to DU3.

I have to admit that the range of problems DUers are running into is baffling, and kudos to the admins for trying to get this all to work out.

[jxla]

25. Maybe check to make sure you didn't get signed out? n/t

[highplainsdem]

26. That was actually my first thought when I saw Skinner mode had changed to Default. But I'm not signed out, and

I wouldn't be able to post here if I were signed out.

[Rhiannon12866]

30. My friend who had the same problem said he signed out then signed back in and that worked, but it didn't work for me

[highplainsdem]

32. Try clearing recent cookies/cache/history in your browser. I just did after seeing the reply from Eugene here

https://www.democraticunderground.com/125624088

and it worked for me, though I had to go back 24 hours (the only options for recent history were between 1 hour, and 24 hours, and you need to go back to before the problem started...but you don't need to remove ALL).

That restored Skinner mode. I didn't have to log out, though I'd closed the two tabs I had open in DU. When I clicked on DU again, Skinner mode was back and I was still logged in.

[mahina]

28. Working for me

Good luck mate

[EarlG]

33. This is almost certainly related to the other issues we've had with CSS files not loading

You know how sometimes people run into the "wall of text" problem, where suddenly all formatting disappears and DU just looks like a long list of text and links? In that situation, the main stylesheet file for the site does not get loaded properly, so the site is unstyled.

In most cases the fix is to simply hit Shift + Refresh (if you're on a device with a keyboard) which forces the browser to fetch new files from the DU servers.

In this case, it seems that the main CSS file is loading okay, but the CSS file which controls Skinner Mode is not loading. That's why you're seeing the Default version of the site.

I'll be honest, this is a frustrating issue which is proving tough to fix, mainly because it's so intermittent.

FOR NOW: if you run into a situation where a stylesheet is not loading correctly, you can hit these links to directly visit the stylesheet file.

Default Mode: https://www.democraticunderground.com/du4css/du4.css

Night Mode: https://www.democraticunderground.com/du4css/nightmode.css

Skinner Mode: https://www.democraticunderground.com/du4css/skinnermode.css

Visiting any of those files should give you what looks like a wall of code -- that's good, it means the file has loaded. When you see that wall of code, try hitting Shift + Refresh (if you have a keyboard) or just refreshing the page if you're on a tablet or phone. That should give you the latest version of the file. When you go back to DU, hopefully it will be working normally.

If you just get a blank page at any of the links above, it means the CSS file did not load. In that case, your best bet is to try clearing your browser's cache. There are instructions on how to clear your cache on all devices here:

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-clear-your-cache-on-any-browser

This is just a temporary workaround while we try to nail down this bug, but it should apply to any situation where you're not getting the correct view of the site.

[highplainsdem]

34. Thanks! I was just going to edit my OP with an update about clearing RECENT cache/history, back to

before the problem started, since I found that suggestion in another thread and it worked for me and I didn't even have to log in again.

Would you PLEASE post the advice in your reply in a separate OP pinned to the top of the board?

At least until this bug is fixed.

I have to admit I didn't think it could be a problem with CSS loading since it seemed to negate the setting for Skinner mode but didn't affect the other modes. The other formatting problems I ran into with DU affected every page.

[EarlG]

35. I added a pinned thread with the workaround (nt)

[highplainsdem]

36. Thanks! Just recced that and posted a reply mentioning it might be necessary to delete only recent history, cookies,

etc., so you don't have to log in again.