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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?)."
FP.
Film at eleven.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
Does using to add-on to look like IE change anything? That would be pretty revealing.
Seen this before certain banks using microsoft's web libraries, and suddenly firefox not being able to enter your banking page. Setting the browser's id as IE and os as windows and suddenly it works flawlessly. So Id guess it smells afoul.
IE comes with MSN as the default page and has links to tons of Microsoft products and services whereas Firefox leans away from most Microsoft-based sites. I'm sure these bugs will be fixed eventually... but I'm also pretty sure Microsoft wasn't too worried about launching Hotmail without Firefox support.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
...feature to get around this. I haven't poked about too much, but 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? Funny, the day after I noticed this problem, we got an intern at work who will be designing a web page for our department. When I was asked if I had any preferences for the web site, I replied "Don't force me to use IE to view it." Several other internal websites at our company do this, to my consternation.
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.
Even the free version wont work in konqueror ( or at least hasn't for me for some time now )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
With a large dev team, lots of server admins, lots of marketing and a massive user base - you mean they don't test at all with other browsers while their in beta?
The only way I could see this happening is if theres an internal policy to use _only_ IE for browsing (unlikely), or if developers were not allowed to.
Same behavior in Konqueror(3.5.9). Well, actually, the default Konqueror UA isn't recognized as compatible with the full version interface; but spoofing either an IE or an FF UA changes that. With the spoof in place, the page exhibits the same behavior as described with FF3
So, this problem isn't caused by straight discrimination based on UA string, since spoofing IE had no effect. Something about the website is clearly wonky, though I can't say whether or not KHTML is to blame.
Weird, the MSDN sites (even the subscription download ones) work perfectly fine for me in Firefox.
The full version works fine in Opera 9.5...now who says Opera's not a compatible enough browser? ;-)
Karma: Excellent (fuck, even in the future moderation doesn't work!)
I tried the IE7 user-agent and it still didn't work
As much as I hate anecdotal "evidence" for things, I can say that I just cleared my junk mail from a full Windows Live mail account (it was Hotmail until they forced me to move it over) just before I came to slashdot. In Firefox 3. No problems. I've never seen that message.
That being said, I also have SUSE, and it occurred to me perhaps there is some special deal going on there to allow it to work fine. But if not, I can't see any good reason to blame Mozilla or Microsoft; the bug was filed with Firefox 3 still in beta, perhaps it was an un-updated extension or the like interfering?
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/08/1355246&from=rss
... it is supposed to be standards compliant by default.
"Hotmail Doesn't Work With Linux Firefox 2.0" - Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:35 AM
"... The writer concludes that the webmail interface has been artificially limited by basic user-agent sniffing. The solution is simple enough: spoofing the User Agent that Firefox report"
I wonder if it works with IE8 beta
Same here with FF2 and FF3. Works fine for me on those sites.
They also work fine for me. But I always have to do my login twice because the first time it always says I put in the incorrect password
I have nothing compelling to say
Plus or minus a few for the "I only use it for passport, but then use it as a throwaway email for some sites" crowd or the "I only use my ISP email address" crowd.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Well I have a Hotmail account, I just don't check it, and there seems to be no way to delete it. And you don't need a Hotmail account to have a Passport account.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
what is this hotmail you speak of?
yes, but for many who started with their account back in the day, it became their passport account.
Out of curiosity, was there a point in that either way?
Ice Cream has no bones.
even ebay is broken with check status etc...
While I don't use Hotmail as my main account (haven't for quite a while), I still use it. And Firefox. No, nobody installed it for me. I am the go-to guy for tech and science (etc, etc, etc.) And I don't have any trouble getting into Hotmail (full) at all. :)
I hope this comment is well received... I could have moderated instead!
Persecutors will be violated!
> Well I have a Hotmail account, I just don't check it, and there seems to be no way to
> delete it.
Can't you change the address to anonymous@example.com and the password to Yaewoh4i? That would seem to have the same effect.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I am somewhat curious about the type of person that uses Firefox 3 but has a Hotmail (note not Passport) account that they actually check.
I do. I've used Hotmail since before MS bought them (I think they ran off BSD in those days...netcraft may have even confirmed it!) and I just never bothered to switch over to something else.
-- The Genesis project? What's that?
Damn you senor counterexample =)
Ok so add no1home-ish users to N.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Does anyone actually use hotmail anymore? If so, does anyone that knows enough to use firefox still use hotmail?
Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
This is only news to IE users, and there probably aren't much around here. Almost every website under *.microsoft.* or *.google.* has problems with either opera or firefox or both.
In 80's and 90's everyone was like "get a compatible" meaning get a PC with DOS or Windows. Now it seems like Microsoft is the incompatible company! Examples: Internet Explorer not standards compliant, Vista not compatible with many business applications that ran well on XP, MS Office not supporting ODF... Does this mean that Microsoft is going down the same path as Commodore and OS/2?
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.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Who cares about hotmail anyway? Isn't that the obnoxious service which adds advertisements to all the mails sent by their users? (And most users not being aware that they are sending spam at the bottom of the mails they write.)
Well, in fact Yahoo does the same thing. Strange that the MS/Yahoo deal didn't work out. As far as treating their email service users, they seem to behave the same.
I do for one, I created it when I first got on the net and have never had a problem with it so never needed to change. And since most of my friends use MSN to chat online I need an address for that anyway. I see no conflict of any kind, hotmail works and does its job as do my non-M$ browsers.
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?)
1) Changing or spoofing agent string doesn't help. Even pretending to be IE, the .js files associated still fail in FF3 WITH THE SAME ERROR.
2) If you look at the page source you can tell that Hotmail is identifying FireFox properly and loading the corresponding javascript, etc specific to FireFox.
So why is the Firefox team assigning this to 'Agent String' or 'Tech Evangelism' again?
Nobody wants to do that of course, but can't they technically be trialed for this?
Willfully excluding a competitors product is not so nice. [/naive]
I guess Microsoft is still Microsoft. Will they ever change?
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
Secureserver.com (Godaddy's email service) has started rejecting logins if you're using Opera.
I don't mind a warning, but for God's sake let me just take my chances, would you? Now I have to switch to Firefox to check mail--fucking retarded.
Hey, I've got an idea--instead of serving custom pages by sniffing user agents, why not make a single set of code that works everywhere? I mean, I know it's horrible to contemplate--but I'm really not interested in your fancy Ajax interface or toys that try to second guess everything I do--I just want to check my fucking mail. And now I can't even do that, 'cuz yer so fancy.
expandfairuse.org
The account management page doesn't work either, the sections just sit on loading forever (why do they use scripting for this anyway?). Thus giving no way to, say, change your password.
Billing still works. Still no way to remove a credit card without adding another, though.
What really surprised me is that people are still using hotmail?!?!
Instead of "Dos ain't done until Lotus won't run." how about "Hotmail ain't done until Firefox won't run."
it's = it is
its = belonging to it
So the people sending spam AREN'T using Firefox 3, thank you for bearing with us through our tests, we hope you didn't think we were intentionally blocking you guys.
~ A Microsoft Employee
It'll take Microsoft about 5 days to fix it.
Part of being a giant, evil mega-corporation is successfully choosing when to be pragmatic.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You do realise that Outlook Web Access actually does rely on some IE only stuff right? Specifically, it uses a non-standard HTTP verb (SUBSCRIBE), they still haven't moved from using the old XMLHTTP ActiveX control to the new XMLHttpRequest (you can probably forgive them for being slow on the uptake there - they probably can't believe it ever took off - nothing Microsoft invents takes off!), and I imagine some of the Javascript is quite funky too (the "You have new e-mail" popup appears OVER other programs).
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
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
Are you still quoting that distortion of Al's words?
In Soviet Russia, Al Gore quotes YOU!And the Internet invented AL GORE!
And you reply to ME!
And I downmod YOU!
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Try this link:
https://login.live.com/login.srf?wa=wsignin1.0&rpsnv=10&rver=4.5.2130.0&wp=MBI&wreply=http:%2F%2Fmail.live.com%2Fmail%2Fmail.aspx&id=64855&bk=57295219I was able to sign in with both after using it
My iGoogle layout broke the day I upgraded to FF3 also, so I assume it's the culprit. It's still usable so I haven't dug too deep for a solution, being lazy and all.
Curious, I got 3 passport accounts and no hotmail.
Actually, I think you'll find Hotmail has more of a habit of losing non-spam messages.
Hotmail has another weird bug with firefox - some accounts (mostly @msn.com) have to log in twice. Here's a long forum post about it, here's a pretty bug report, and here's an easy fix.
True. That said, if you are stuck in the infinite loop, though, you don't have to go clear your cache to be able to log in. You can just go to the main MSN portal, and since that site recognizes that you're still logged in, it will show you a "sign out" link instead. Just log out, and go back to the Hotmail site, and will let you log in again. Not ideal, but better than clearing caches.
HTH
If its an @msn.com address, particually with Hotmail, try and the associated bug report. I think it might be related.
Hotmail was two years ago? What decade is this? Someone bring me some coffee!
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
What's this Hotmail thing, a gay male "connecting service"?
Not to excuse them for having a crappy site, but do you know for sure that you weren't breaking their terms of service by doing this? With most sites I wouldn't care, but in the case of Internet Banking I might be tempted to just find an alternative bank that did agree to support my browser.
For all you know, the reason they were trying to block Firefox might have been because they knew of a bug that would mis-interpret your banking instructions. (eg. If you told it to pay someone on 6/7/2008, it might be sent by the browser as 7/6/2008.)
If you'd knowingly worked around their efforts to block your browser from using their banking interface, and then they'd lost your money, you might not have much of a legal standing to fall back on.
Who still uses hotmail, anyway?
if their response to other bugs is any indication then it looks like firefox users are going to be using the basic version of hotmail for some time to come. i've been marking all the windows live service emails as phishing attempts for years but they still keep coming...
(Although I also added the ?ui=1 trick in case she really had to use IE for some reason)
At work we found some odd Salesforce incompatibilities with FF3 too. Annoying to have to open IE for one damn button....
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do not forget: GMail doesn't work with Opera either... at least not with the full capabilities working.
The original pre-MS hotmail also used qmail.
besides spammers?
There are so many other free web-based mail alternatives out there that do not close your acct for inactivity, have proper methods of spam control, and work properly with web standards.
Have a squat over at the hobo house.
You can clean that up a bit... one site filter:
*.(hotmail|live).com*
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