> Posted by Rob on Behalf of Mark...
>
> I've been doing a little investigation into this (I'm a colleague of
> Rob's) and we are still experiencing the issue in Firefox 3.  I'm
> afraid it's very difficult for me to produce an example of this as we
> are using quite a complex set of getScript calls in our website and
> can't make this available to the outside world.  I've managed to
> generate a replica of the page here:http://www.tcc-net.com/jquery-getscript/
>
> Here are my findings todate:
>
>  - We are calling getScript to retrieve local javascript files.
>  - As soon as the file is loaded, we attempt to execute a function
> within the script.
>
> I put a few console.log messages into the files (Firebug uses
> console.log for debugging) to output messages at certain points.  The
> key ones were a message at the end of the file being retrieved ("end
> of tablesorter") with getScript and one in the callback ("would
> trigger") which is triggered on (apparent) completion of the load.
>
> Most of the time, these appear in the console in the correct order
> ("end of tablesorter" => "would trigger").  Occasionally, however,
> they appear the alternate way around and this is when the error
> (myMethod() is not a valid function, or words to those effect) is
> seen.
>
> I therefore deduce that the callback is being triggered before the
> execution of the javascript is complete (even though it is loaded, it
> has not executed fully).  It is down to a race as to whether the
> callback is triggered first or the script completes execution.
>
> Looking at the jQuery code, and I am claiming no expertise here so I
> may well be wrong, it seems that the "globalEval" function is used to
> execute a local script once downloaded.  I do not see anywhere in this
> function, however, where there are any checks on whether the script
> has fully executed.
>
> It might be that in IE6, IE7, FF < 3 the execution of the javascript
> is paused until the inserted script element has been executed, and in
> FF3, no such pause occurs.  I am hypothesising here though, and really
> don't have enough information on how this method of script loading
> works internally.
>
> I'm posting this information here more to see if it triggers any
> thoughts in those more experienced jQuery contributors.  In the
> meantime, I will continue my own investigations.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark.