Question

I have modified this jQuery pluggin to make a table that updates with an animation every second. I have a bug in my code whereby a JavaScript error occurs each time the window looses focus. (The error is that a certain transient DOM element for the animation is not in the page, when it should actually be there.)

I have a strong feeling that this is due to the way browsers slow down setTimeouts (in my case, probably inside jQuery.animate()) on tabs that do not have focus, for performance reasons.

How can I avoid my JavaScript from breaking down when the window containing it looses focus?

Answer 1

Before executing your code triggered by the timer you have to check whether the previous execution is finished.