Getting very strange javascript error and this page also refuses to work in Internet Explorer 7 or 8.

Question

This is the page I'm working on... http://schnell.dreamhosters.com/folio/earthquake.html Its purpose is explained via the instructions on the left. I'm finding that after doing so many searches and clicking so many of the links in the list on the right that the page freezes up, the Google Map stops working and Firebug tells me of an error in main.js and it goes like this...

b is undefined  
Line 49 

I really don't know why this decided to happen all of a sudden and the error is so cryptic and muddled amongst Google's code that I don't think I'll be able to figure this one out by myself.

Another problem I'm finding is that the page itself simply refuses to work in IE7 and IE8 (or probably any version of IE for that matter). I am also at a loss as to how to solve this problem because I can't figure out how to use any of IE's debuggers (if they even have one) and seeing how I already tested this and made it work in two browsers (technically three since Safari runs off WebKit just like Chrome), I just don't have the drive or capacity to imagine what could be going wrong.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Answer 1

IE8 is quite good when it comes to helping out the developer. From memory F12 will open up the developer window where you can inspect the DOM, CSS and debug script.

Your error is cryptic because most javascript comes minified, so variables are all remapped to single letters, etc. See if the script causing the problem has a development (i.e. unminified) version as this will make a lot more sense to step through.

With regards to your specific issue it sounds like a timing issue. While browsers do a decent job of executing script in a consistent way if you follow standards, they do differ in their timings i.e. when things execute. That would explain why b is undefined in some cases and not others.

Answer 2

Moved from comment to answer.

As scunliffe mentioned, you are trying to do a crossbrowser AJAX without using jsonp. Use either $.ajax() with datatype jsonp or add a &callback=? at the end of the URL in the $.getJSON() call.