My notebook no longer loads

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1

Somehow I managed to make a notebook that no longer loads and seems to be totally busted.

Here’s the notebook URL: XYZ Hypothesis / Jerry Jäppinen | Observable (public)

As far as I remember, I wasn’t doing anything particularly hacky or elaborate. I was trying to replicate some Excel formulas (you can see more at Resources - ALBERTO SAVOIA) but I can’t think of anything in the notebook that would enter an infinite loop, weird dependency chains or anything like that. No database connections or external requests either.

I don’t get any errors, just a blank notebook. Interestingly, some of the content loads in incognito mode, but when I’m logged in, nothing shows.

Screenshot 2023-02-10 at 18.53.23
Screenshot 2023-02-10 at 18.53.232228×1420 115 KB

Screenshot 2023-02-10 at 18.53.35
Screenshot 2023-02-10 at 18.53.352500×2334 288 KB

I was editing the notebook without issue for a while, and then this manifested out of nowhere at some point. I gave it a few hours hoping it would sort itself out, but it didn’t help. I’m mainly using Chrome but get the same issue on Safari.

1 Like
3

Hi Jerry!

I looked at your notebook in safe mode Safe Mode: Math of success dashboard / Jerry Jäppinen | Observable and the probability cell stuck out to me since it was looping:

probability = {
  for (let i = experimentCount - 1; i >= 0; ++i) {
    if (probabilities[i]) {
      return probabilities[i];
    }
  }

  return 0;
}

it looked like it was infinite because it counts upwards and the ending check is >= 0. I commented that cell out in safe mode and viewed the notebook again and it worked. when I commented it back in, everything froze up again. so, I think if you just adjust the ++i to a decrement --i it could work?

and, you can learn more about Safe mode. it’s a great debugging tool for these infinite loop cases. I’ve definitely run into them often too.

2 Likes
4

Yup, that was it! I didn’t know about the safe mode, thanks for the hint.