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Fix: html parsing error unable to modify the parent container element before the child in IE8

8 February 2012 2 Comments

If you run Internet Explorer 8 and encounter the following error:

“html parsing error unable to modify the parent container element before the child”

or

“Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http://<Web site>.com. Operation aborted.”

The error basically means that an element on the page is trying to get modified without being completely loaded. (e.g. deleting or appending to the object). Possible causes are lightbox style or flash messenger transitions that run the following code:

$("body").append

It appears to be specific to Internet Explorer 8 with the way it parses the DOM object.  Here’s a good reference to the problem on MSDN - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2008/04/23/what-happened-to-operation-aborted.aspx

Fix: The quickest fix is to use jQuery to prevent the script from running until the page is fully loaded. 

$(document).ready(function(){
// Your Javascript function goes here
});
</script>

 

2 Comments »

  • Daynah said:

    RT @dragonal: Fix: html parsing error unable to modify the parent container element before the child in IE8 http://t.co/L6MVXdfb

  • Tom West said:

    How do you prevent the error appearing for other people’s websites?

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