Internet Explorer Displays Partial or No Web Page

ID: Q154446

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 2.01, 3.0, 3.01, 3.02a for Windows 3.1

SYMPTOMS

When you connect to a Web page in Internet Explorer, the page may not be displayed in its entirety or at all. When this occurs, there is no error message, and you can view the Web page's source code by clicking Source on the View menu.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur if the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) source code contains comment tags that have not been closed correctly. For example, if a comment contains the "<!--" tag but not the closing ">" tag, Internet Explorer does not display anything after the comment.

RESOLUTION

Have the author of the Web page edit the HTML source code so that the comment is correctly tagged.

MORE INFORMATION

Request For Comments (RFC) 1866 for HTML 2.0, in section 3.2.5, "Comments," states the following:

              
   A comment declaration consists of '<!' followed by zero or more
   comments followed by '>'.  Each comment starts with '--' and includes
   all text up to and including the next occurrence of '--'.

Internet Explorer for Windows 95 and Internet Explorer for Windows NT properly display a Web page even if an HTML comment is not closed correctly.

KBCategory: kbtool KBSubcategory: msiew31 Additional reference words: 2.01

Keywords          : msiew31 
Version           : 2.01 3.0 3.01 3.02a
Platform          : WINDOWS

Last Reviewed: September 3, 1997