After entering the login credentials the dashboard begins to be displayed but freezes part way through or is completely blank. If a partial load is achieved, the portlets do not load their data and instead display a "Loading..." message. The entire browser window seems to fail to redraw the page contents when this occurs. For example, if you drag another window over the top of the area that the dashboard has been partially rendered, you will see that the contents of the dashboard window never gets redraws after something was dragged across the window. Another example is if you go to a different tab and come back, the entire tab will be empty.

This issue does not always occur and seems to be very random. During testing, the issue could be consistently reproduced by moving the mouse cursor about the dashboard area while the page was being loaded. This testing also revealed that the mashup portlet and its contents seemed to determine whether it was possible to reproduce this issue. By removing the mashup portlet or changing the URL of the mashup portlet, the issue would go away.

Here are the specifics:

*   The issue occurs when using IE 8.0.6001.18702 on Windows XP SP3 (the latest available version for Windows XP at this time) under the following conditions:
    *   The mashup portlet must be on the dashboard page
    *   The mashup portlet must be using the URL: https://access.redhat.com/ext/software/JBoss_Operations_Network/portlet?jonVersion=3.1
        *   By using another URL in the mashup portlet, such as the one used in the default RHQ installation, the issue is not reproducible.
    *   The issue seems to be related to UI activity while the page is loading.
        *   For example, movement of the mouse cursor in the area where the portlets will be drawn. 

*   The issue WOULD NOT occur when using IE 8.0.7600.16385 on a later version of Windows.



Other UI anomalies could be seen during testing. Such as in many instances the page would freeze while being rendered, other times it would just be blank (header and message center only), while other times all was fine. The blank pages could be seen by simply refreshing the browser by pressing F5 and waiting for the page to show it was done loading. The freeze issue could only be seen when moving the mouse cursor around the dashboard area while the page was being loaded.


Some preliminary research on similar issues revealed that this may have to do with IFRAMES:

    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/iewebdevelopment/thread/886ca322-1b96-46a8-b5de-1301d9df0740

    http://www.indexhibit.org/forum/thread/7450/

However, this data is inconclusive. Although the mashup portlet uses IFRAME the reports seemed to deal with JavaScript being contained within the IFRAME. In our case, the URL that is offensive contains no JavaScript or other functions that would interfere with the IFRAME.