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Hotmail Full Version Incompatible With Firefox 3

An anonymous reader notes that Hotmail's full version doesn't work with Firefox 3. Users get the following message when they try to log in: You are temporarily on the classic version of Windows Live Hotmail due to an error encountered during login. Before trying again, please clear your cache and cookies. (Clearing cache and cookies doesn't fix it.) At least 8 other bug reports have been duped to this one. The fault apparently lies with the Hotmail site, not Mozilla — maintainer Dave Garrett assigned the bug to Tech Evangelism, explaining: "I'll... move this over to TE, as my guess is this [is] the site's fault (just bad user agent sniffing?)."

16 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Not so friendly to non-MS browsers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you use Safari, eventually the site saves your info to the cache - even if you ask for it not to save your username or password. Once your info is in Safari's cache, loading hotmail.com to try to log in gets you into an infinite loop bouncing between a couple of addresses. You have to stop the loading, go empty the cache of everything from live.com, and reload hotmail.com. Perhaps some of the fault is Apple's, but I've never had that problem with any other website while using Safari.

    It's probably just Microsoft being Microsoft.

  2. Konqueror issues too by nurb432 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Even the free version wont work in konqueror ( or at least hasn't for me for some time now )

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  3. Re:User agent switcher by jeiler · · Score: 4, Informative

    Doesn't work. (FireFox 3, User Agent Switcher).

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  4. Re:I have been using the "Open in IE Tab"... by mtempsch · · Score: 3, Informative

    Under Tools -> IE Tab Options, Sites Filter tab - add the site, wildcarded as needed, for instance like http://foo.com/*

  5. Re:The cake was a lie. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why is this modded offtopic? It's funny, IE team sends them a cake and this guy says the cake was a lie.

  6. Re:I have been using the "Open in IE Tab"... by KaMiKa-Z77 · · Score: 4, Informative

    is there a way to 'hard code' that into the bookmark? That is, just specify in that Hotmail bookmark it should always open in an IE tab? Yes, there is. If you go to IE Tab's preferences, there is a "Site Filter" tab. I usually add three rules to it so they always open in IE Tab:
    • http://*.hotmail.com/*
    • http://*.live.com/*
    • https://*.live.com/*
    Sucks, I know, but I'd rather do this than wait for Microsoft to fix their websites to work with FF.
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  7. Re:The cake was a lie. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    IE team != Hotmail team

  8. Re:Hotmail incompatible with me.... by laserbeak43 · · Score: 4, Informative

    From my experience, The new hotmail has compatability issues with IE7!! LOL

  9. Re:Change the User Agent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I tried the IE7 user-agent and it still didn't work

  10. Re:User agent switcher by Vectronic · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tried as well, no go... even masking as FireFox/1.5 doesn't work, even though it says in mail.live.com that FireFox 1.5 is compatible.

    As a side note, it doesn't work in Opera 9.51 either, I didn't notice since I prefer the classic version anyways...

    It does however work if you set the site preferences as Mask As Internet Explorer (in Opera) although it seems to run really poorly, masking as FireFox goes to Classic.

  11. Re:This isn't particularly new by vertinox · · Score: 4, Informative

    This may not exactly be on the topic, but I've noticed every Microsoft run website that I try to access with Firefox gives me trouble, even with previous versions of Firefox.

    Its not flamebait.

    Support.microsoft.com and office.microsoft.com have quirks with pages loading completely that make it painful enough to use IE instead.

    Its not like I have to visit those sites that often though.

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  12. Response from Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I filed a tech support request on hotmail, the following is the email I got back from microsoft.

    Dear Joel,

    Your message was forwarded to us at Windows Live Hotmail Technical Support. This is Kris and I gather that you are having issue that Windows Live Hotmail will not load in the full version when you are accessing your *****@hotmail.com account through Firefox 3 as your browser. I understand the importance of having this addressed immediately.

    Joel, I would like to inform you that Windows Live Hotmail does not currently have the feature that will allowed you to use the full version of Windows Live Hotmail when using Firefox 3 as your browser. What I can do for you now is to personally submit this item to the Windows Live Hotmail Product Development Team as a feature request for evaluation, as I see the usefulness of this capability.

    We appreciate your continued support as we strive to provide you with the highest quality service available. Thank you for using Windows Live Hotmail.

    Sincerely,

    Kris

    Windows Live Hotmail Technical Support

    --- Original Message ---
    From : *****@hotmail.com
    Sent : Wednesday, June 18, 2008 3:12:37 AM UTC
    To : LV_ID.WNLV.NA.US.EN.MSF.SEA.TS.T01.RTG.00.EM
    Subject : Windows Live ID:I have a different proble:Other

    Service:
        Windows Live ID

    What type of problem do you have?
    I have a different problem or question [I have a different problem or question]

    Other [Other]

    Full name:
          Joel *****

    The e-mail address for us to send a response:
          *****@hotmail.com

    Primary e-mail address/member ID associated with the account you are inquiring about:
          *****@hotmail.com

    Be specific when describing your problem. The details that you include enable us to promptly send you the most likely solution to your issue.
          The full version of live mail won't load in Firefox 3. The classic version loads instead with an error message.

    The full version of live mail worked with Firefox 2.

    Frequency of the issue:
          Always present [Always present]

    Who is your ISP?

    Have you recently installed any new software (if you enter yes please add more comments in the text box above)?

          Yes [Yes]

    Which operating system are you using?Windows XP: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0

    Which browser are you using: Firefox3.0

    Location: en-us - English (United States)

    Type of Support: E-mail Support

    Browser Default Language: en-us,en;q=0.5

  13. Re:It works in Opera :-) by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well I bet there is a memo at Microsoft like "Don't mess with Opera" after the MSN scandal and rumored $millions loss after settlement.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/02/06/msn_deliberately_breaks_operas_browser/

  14. Re:User agent switcher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Changing the user agent likely wouldn't stop it from recognizing a given browser. Most browsers support certain features that others don't. For example, javascript could look for the existance of ActiveX to find IE, document.all or document.frames for IE, conditional comments for IE, window.opera for Opera, etc. A quick view-source of this page on identifying browsers through CSS and Javascript will show some of the many ways to identify browsers.

  15. Re:Sensational, or Novell? by duguk · · Score: 2, Informative

    look carefully, its in the center of the page; if the site doesn't load it redirects back to the old version with a message, in a yellow box on the main hotmail page. its easy to miss - i did too.

  16. Re:Hotmail incompatible with me.... by medeii · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotmail

    Acquired by Microsoft in 1997.

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