Plug-In, Tune Out

By Wayne Maruna

A reader writes:

“We get some strange messages from our computers that we simply do not understand. My most recent example comes on fairly often.
 
“’Warning: Unresponsive Script. A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, open the script in the debugger, or let the script continue.’

“Then I get these choices to click: ‘Continue,  Debug Script,  Stop Script’
 
“I clicked on Stop Script.  The next message was: ‘Unresponsive Plug In’.  Choices listed were:
‘Continue or Stop Plug in’
 
“Is this telling me there is something wrong with the message on the internet, or that something is wrong with my computer?  What is a Script?  What is a Plug in? What happens when I stop one?”

Well, reader, you have ventured into some pretty esoteric areas.  Some people tell me my articles go over their heads.  To answer this question in detail would be so far over their heads as to be vying with the SR71 Blackbird spy planes.  So let me try to keep this to the very lowest level, which is about where my understanding is anyway.

The error message you received was clearly coming from your web browser, and I guessed correctly when I asked you if you were using Mozilla Firefox, which you confirmed.  It seems a web search of your error message reveals that questions about it most often come from Firefox users, for whatever reason.

So what is a plug-in? In computing, a plug-in (or add-in or extension) is a software module that adds a specific feature or service to an existing computer program, most often a web browser. When a program supports plug-ins, it enables customization. In a web browser, this might mean new features like search engines, virus scanners, password managers, or the use of new file types such as a new video format. Common plug-ins include Adobe Flash Player, Apple QuickTime Player, and a Java plug-in which can launch a Java applet (small program.)  

What’s a script? A computer script is a list of commands that are executed by a certain program or scripting engine. They are usually just text documents that contain instructions written in a certain scripting engine.  Commonly, this scripting language is JavaScript, which does not create applets or stand alone applications. It typically resides inside HTML documents (the language of the web), where it can provide interactivity to web pages that is not achievable with simple HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language.)

Hey, I told you this would not be easy.

Despite the similarity of their names, JavaScript is not the same as Java.  The latter is a more complicated programming language which can create standalone applications, whereas JavaScript must reside within an HTML document (primarily) to function.

Why did your error message appear?  That, after all, is really what you are asking.  Well, I am going to make like your doctor when you ask him/her why it hurts when you do ‘this’, and he tells you to just stop doing ‘this’. There are many possibilities that could be at play.  It could be a bad script, or a problem with the browser’s handling of the scripting language, or a poorly designed web page, or a browser security setting that has disabled the scripting engine, or perhaps your plug-in needs to be updated.  My initial suggestion to you was to try a different browser (I.E. or Google Chrome, for example), or failing that, just avoid that web page if possible.  

What happens when you stop a script?  If you’re lucky, the web page will continue to load.  If not, it won’t.  Big deal. You won’t break anything, so don’t worry.

In some respects, web pages are a bit like sausages.  You’re better off not knowing everything that goes into making them.

Addendum:  the reader wrote back to say he updated to the latest version of Firefox, and the occurences of the script and plug-in errors are greatly diminished.