1741080 - Skype for the Web gives fake errors to Firefox and won't allow voice and video calls. Trivially fixed with UA quirk.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1531004

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect, P3)

Description

[u695984]

Attachment: Screenshot from 2021-11-14 08-53-28.png

Steps to reproduce:

I went to web.skype.com and logged in.

Actual results:

Microsoft Skype for the web (web.skype.com) produces a fake error message that says "Skype has limited functionality in this browser, we recommend to use [sic] different browser. (Try Microsoft Edge!)".

If Microsoft Skype knows you use Firefox, then it allows text chat, but not voice and video calling, and implies it's the fault of Firefox somehow.

It also breaks notifications if it knows you use Firefox.

Expected results:

They should stop putting out fake error messages and work correctly.

This is a bogus error message.

If you use User Agent Switcher and feed it the user agent for Microsoft Edge 95, I have verified that voice and video calls work and you can enable notifications.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/95.0.4638.69 Safari/537.36 Edg/95.0.1020.53

This is not a duplicate of any other bug, because Skype doesn't require any downloads, programs, or plug-ins, and uses the web platform, but Microsoft has broken it so that it only works in Edge or Chrome.

Comment 1

[Gingerbread Man]

Please disable User Agent Switcher, then enter about:support into the address bar, and copy and paste the value of the User Agent row into a comment here.

Comment 2

[Dennis Schubert [:denschub]]

We did some testing in bug 1565920 and the linked GitHub PR, and even with short amounts of testing, we found a lot of issues when spoofing the UA, so at least back then, "just spoofing the UA" wasn't a great option.

However, this was two years ago, and things might have changed now. I'll probe some other folks' mind who are currently working on similar issues, assigning and ni?'ing myself to get back to this issue.

Comment 3

[Dennis Schubert [:denschub]]

I've added this to an internal list of potential candidates. I'll keep this bug updated whenever there is something to update, and I'll file bug if and when concrete action items from WebCompat's perspective arise. :)

Comment 4

[Raul Bucata]

We appreciate your report. I was able to reproduce the issue. Upon accessing my test account, a message is displayed informing about the limited usage of Skype whilst using Firefox.

Tested with:

Browser / Version: Firefox Nightly 97.0a1 (2022-01-06) (64-bit)
Operating System: Windows 10 PRO x64/ Ubuntu 20.4 LTS x64

Dennis, from my part the issue is reproducible on other devices as well

Comment 5

[Dennis Schubert [:denschub]]

This is affecting all Firefoxes, there is no reason to have a release tracking field set here. :)

Comment 6

[Dennis Schubert [:denschub]]

This still is a valid bug, but currently not actionable for me, so I'll remove my ni? just to get rid of the flag.

Comment 7

[Ngọc Nam Event]

help me fix web: https://sukienngocnam.com.vn/

Comment 8

[Dennis Schubert [:denschub]]

At this point, I'll just close this as a duplicate of bug 1531004.