DU Community Help

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.