Chrome’s loading indicator keeps spinning during XMLHttpRequest

by

I shamelessly stole Oleg’s test case and adjusted it a bit to simulate long-polling.

load.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<head>
  <title>Demonstration of the jQery.load problem</title>
  <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
  <script>
  jQuery(document).ready(function() {
    $('#main').load("test.php");
  });
  </script>
</head>
<body>
  <div id='main'></div>
</body>
</html>

test.php:

<?php
  sleep(5);
?>
<b>OK!</b>

The result is interesting: in Firefox and Opera, no loading indicator is shown during XMLHTTPRequests. Chrome lets it spinning… I suspect Google Wave doesn’t use long polling anymore (but, for instance, polls every X seconds, to save resources), but I can’t test it, as I don’t have an account.

EDIT: And I figured it out: after adding a little delay in loading test.php, which can be as small as possible, the loading indicator stops after load.html has been loaded:

jQuery(document).ready(function() {
  setTimeout(function () {
    $('#main').load("test.php");
  }, 0);
});

Somehow, as is confirmed in a comment on another answer, when the browser gets control back to finish page rendering, the indicator stops spinning. Another advantage is that the request cannot be aborted by pressing Esc.

Leave a Comment

tech