Known Problems

Sometimes the features that do work out-weigh some associated problems. At least we hope you agree.

Here are the known bugs:

(All) Pop-up info window: Sometimes it disappears while dragging.

Not to worry, you've probably dragged the box outside of a sigmet/airmet location and the map simply stopped displaying it. The info box has been successfully moved (mouse over another area to see where it re-displayed), or the info box will be re-initialized to a location near the upper-left corner of the browser window. It you really can't see it anywhere, just re-load the browser and it will re-initialize.

(All) Modem Dialup is slow

You're spending how much for 100LL and you still don't have broadband?
First load will be very slow, as all the icons and javascript must be downloaded. Then the periodic data downloads (every few minutes) will be slow. TFRs, SIGMETs, etc., contain a lot of information so your computer will be kept busy downloading over a slow link. Dialup is not recommended.

(All) Browser performance can be slow

This website punishes your browser. In general, the problem is not network related. A faster connection will download the data faster, but general sluggishness is due to all the JavaScript we're executing within your browser. Those lines outlining TFRs, AIRMETs and SIGMETs are the worst offenders, slowing the maps to a crawl on some older browsers. Lots of Icons slow things down, so displaying what you need, rather than trying to see the whole country will work faster. NEXRAD radar adds another psuedo-map layer which doubles some of the processing activities: turning off NEXRAD helps. Flight paths (LAX-ORD-JFK) currently require multiple trips to the server, so if your flight can be accomodated using a single point and large radius (250 miles, for example), that will be faster. We'll continue to work on improving performance, but you can help by upgrading to the lastest operating systems and browser versions.

Windows	IE does pretty well with drawing border lines, so it's recommended from a performance standpoint. If you're running IE6 or IE7, please upgrade: these are lousy, insecure browsers and you have better alternatives. Firefox and Mozilla draws lines differently, grabbing images from Google's servers as you scroll the map. This can result in sluggish panning (dragging) of the map. Safari v.3+, available from Apple for Windows, runs about as fast as Firefox. Google's Chrome is also very fast and free.
Macintosh	Safari v.2 (with MacOS 10.4) is horrid with the way it draws lines. Recent versions are excellent: upgrade if you haven't yet. Firefox and Mozilla work well Google Chrome is very fast. Opera is the slowest supported browser
Linux	Firefox is type tested
Other systems?	Send me email if you have good (or bad) experienced with other systems such as Treo, Blackberry, IPhone. I doubt this website will fully work, but let me know. Work is progressing for better support on smartphones and touch pads (iPad, specifically).

More information is available on the map's Forms and Controls, on the map's icons, and on the data sources.

Suggestions? Questions? Corrections? Let us know! Email