1348849 - Voice/Video calls with Skype for Web does not work on Firefox

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1531004

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect, P1)

Description

[Tim Guan-tin Chien [:timdream] (please needinfo)]

STR:

1. Visit: https://web.skype.com/en/
2. Select a contact (or use the test account echo123) and click on the phone icon to start a voice call

Expected:

1. Able to do Voice on Skype.

Actual:

Error dialog from website:

 Skype calls are temporarily unavailable in Firefox

Your current version of Firefox doesn't support making or receiving calls on Skype for Web. In the meantime, please use a different browser such as Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome.


:'(

Note:

1. This is not a simple UA block. If I use UA Switcher and switch to Chrome/Mac, I will be getting a "Please update your browser" message. I am not sure what they are detecting and we should try to find out (either by debugging more or talking to Microsoft directly)

Comment 1

[ovidiu boca[:Ovidiu]]

Hi Tim,

I test this issue on Mac OS X 10.10 and Windows 10 x64 with FF release, FF Nightly 55.0a1(2017-03-23) and I can't reproduce this. 

I was able to reproduce this in the morning but now everything works as expected. 

Tim, please retest this again, thanks.

Comment 2

[Tim Guan-tin Chien [:timdream] (please needinfo)]

Thanks. It might be already fixed between Fx54 and Fx55. Keeping needinfo -- will test again.

Comment 3

[Tim Guan-tin Chien [:timdream] (please needinfo)]

I can still reproduce this on Nightly 55.0a1 (2017-04-08) (64-bit). The result is the same with and without user agent switcher.

Comment 4

[ovidiu boca[:Ovidiu]]

Thank you, Tim, I retested this on Mac OS X 10.10 with FF Nightly 55.0a1(2017-04-09) and FF release 52.0.2 and I can reproduce this. 

This is the message that I received when I want to start a call on skype:

" Skype calls are temporarily unavailable in Firefox

Your current version of Firefox doesn't support making or receiving calls on Skype for Web. In the meantime, please use a different browser such as Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome.
"

Comment 5

[Mike Taylor [:miketaylr]]

Tom, can you take a look please?

Comment 6

[Thomas Wisniewski]

It looks like they have faulty UA-sniffing code, even for Chrome:

With a Firefox 55 for Linux UA, I can't even click on the call icons.
With a Firefox 55 for OSX UA, I'm told it's currently incompatible with Firefox.
With a Chrome 55 for Linux UA, I'm able to complete a test/Echo call on today's nightly, even on OSX.
With a Chrome 55 for OSX UA, I'm told I have to install a plugin first before making a call.

Note that I tested in Linux and on OSX. My mic worked on OSX; in Linux I couldn't select the correct mic (the doorhanger didn't have it listed), though the call otherwise went through just fine.

Comment 7

[Adam Stevenson [:adamopenweb]]

Just an update that we've reached out to Microsoft / Skype. We are trying to setup a meeting to discuss their future plans. Will update this bug when we have more info to share.

Comment 8

[John Hesling [:John99] (NeedInfo me)]

Problem continues to exist as reported on a SupportMozilla thread the user being on the current release Fx53.0.2 
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/53.0
> I am unable to make a Skype call. When I try, I get a message stating "Skype calls are temporarily unavailable in Firefox". Can anyone help with this?
>https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1160489

I note however Skype appears to work for me. Or at least their audio loopback test works ok.
Currently I am using Windows10 & the default browser is 32bit Fx54.0a2

Are there any workarounds for this other than the user setting their default browser as something else such as Edge or IE. I presume from comments above that spoofing another User Agent does not help.

Any news from meetings with MS/Skype

Comment 9

[Adam Stevenson [:adamopenweb]]

Currently it seems the options are to use Firefox ESR 52 (which will continue to support legacy NPAPI plugins for another year) or to temporarily switch to IE for Skype calls.

Comment 10

[ovidiu boca[:Ovidiu]]

Build ID 	20170831100258
User Agent 	Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.12; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0


I tested this issue on Mac OS X 10.12 with FF Nightly 57.0a1(2017-08-31) and this issue is still reproducible.

Comment 11

[Lars]

I still see this problem with FF 57.

Any updates on this problem?

Comment 12

[Julien L.]

Hi Adam Stevenson,
may you have any info to share now about this issue?
Thanks :)

Comment 13

[Adam Stevenson [:adamopenweb]]

Unfortunately there's not much to update on. It seems like they do want to support Firefox in the future, but it's possibly not a priority right now. I haven't heard back in some time.

Comment 14

[alex_mayorga]

¡Hola!

This is sadly still a thing on Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/61.0 ID:20180330100123

Updating flags accordingly.

¡Gracias!
Alex

Comment 15

[Sergiu Logigan [:sergiu]]

This issue is still reproducible on Windows 10 and Nightly 61.

Comment 17

[costa]

I'm on Ubuntu 18.04, and I can't make Skype calls from web.skype.com. I can log in, and chat, but no calls or video. The call and video buttons are dimmed, and the cursor turns into a no smoking circle with a line through it, when I hover over those buttons.

Comment 18

[Andreas Pehrson [:pehrsons]]

I just tried the current Preview [1] with Nightly spoofing my UA as Chrome, and it worked all right. It's littered with permission prompts for camera and microphone, because of how the prompts work in Chrome probably. That's mostly an annoyance.

Chatting seemed to work just fine.

Audio calling with an Android app was fine too.

Audio/Video from the Android app to Firefox Desktop was fine, but as soon as there was video going from Firefox Desktop to the Android app, the Android app crashed.

[1] https://preview.web.skype.com/

Comment 19

[Filip Štamcar]

I created a forum topic on Skype Community:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/skype/forum/sk_else-sk_other/skype-for-web-preview-support-for-firefox/b76d9ba9-62bd-4f22-81cf-c06cc9050fce?tm=1550672833787

Comment 20

[a_pakla]

Today Skype web stopped on working for Firefox, tested with 65.0.2

Comment 21

[Eduardo Trápani]

(In reply to a_pakla from comment #20)

Today Skype web stopped on working for Firefox, tested with 65.0.2

Same here. But I installed this extension[1] and set the user agent to Chrome and I can chat and make voice call without any issues. I haven't tested video calls though.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher-revived/ and setting the user

Comment 22

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

See bug 1547409. Moving webcompat whiteboard tags to keywords.

Comment 23

[Wellington Torrejais da Silva]

There is news about that problem?

I really want the Skype running on Firefox too.

Thanks!

Comment 24

[Wellington Torrejais da Silva]

External topics:

• https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/skype/forum/all/skype-for-web-preview-support-for-firefox/b76d9ba9-62bd-4f22-81cf-c06cc9050fce
• https://skype.uservoice.com/forums/914527-welcome-to-skype-ideas/suggestions/36658774-preview-firefox-support
• https://twitter.com/Skype/status/1233482235753488384

Thanks!

Comment 25

[Eduardo Trápani]

I really want the Skype running on Firefox too.

You just have to change the user agent. For example with this:

User-Agent Switcher and Manager
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-string-switcher/

You don't have to do it for every site. Click on the extension's icon, then choose an user agent, go to options, select "white list mode" and add "skype.com". That will change the user agent just for those sites (such as web.skype.com) and leave it alone for the rest.

Comment 26

[Hsin-Yi Tsai (she/her) [:hsinyi]]

This does look a duplicate of bug 1531004.