202459 - sterlingcommerce.com - Mozilla blocked by browser-sniffing

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[James Paige]

Visit https://community.sterlingcommerce.com/ and you will be greeted with the
following error message:

------

 the application detected an untested user platform. you may experience problems
using this application. please consider using a tested platform.

the e-community development site supports the following platforms:

    * windows
    * macintosh (not tested)

the e-community development site supports the following web browsers:

    * Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x and above
    * Netscape Navigator 4.7x and above

Home Page

If you believe you have reached this page unexpectedly, please contact the ECD
Admin. ([e-mail])

------

One can get into the site by spoofing your user-agent string, for example, by
setting general.useragent.override to "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0;
Windows NT 5.1; REALLY Mozilla 1.4 on Linux)"

https://community.sterlingcommerce.com/ requires an account to log in, but they
provide a demo-site that you can view without loggin in. The demo site appears
to work just fine.

Comment 1

[James Paige]

Actually, I retract that last statement. _Most_ of the demo site works just
fine, but I have found several broken/buggy links on Sterling Commerce's demo
site that result in error 400 or error 500... but that also happens when I test
the site using MSIE for real -- so it isn't anything Mozilla related.

Comment 2

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

per James comment -> WFM. James, if you run into this again please contact them
directly and ask them to support us.

Comment 3

[James Paige]

*laugh* Re-opening.
No, no. I am sorry. I did not say that clearly enough. This bug is not fixed
yet. Let me restate:

Mozilla is blocked from this website. You cannot access any part of it.

Spoofing an MSIE user-agent string lets you into the site, and everything works
just as well as it does in a "supported" browser.

What I said in comment #1 was to clarify the fact that some portions of the site
appear to be broken regardless of which browser you use.

Comment 4

[James Paige]

Assigning this bug to myself.
I will contact Sterling Commerce, and do what I can to get Mozilla un-blocked.

Comment 5

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

Thanks James. I missed the spoof comment.

Comment 6

[James Paige]

I talked with someone from Sterling Commerce this morning and explained the
situation. She said that they do support Netscape 7, and I explained that that
implied support for Mozilla. She said she would pass on the information.

Comment 7

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

tech evang june 2003 reorg

Comment 8

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

James, have you made any progress on this in the last four years? It's still broken, and four years later I would seriously question the viability of a site that still thinks Netscape 4.7 is a modern browser.

Comment 9

[James Paige]

No, I am afraid I have not had any further luck-- and now my company no longer does business with Sterling Commerce, so I no longer have any motivation to care about their crappy website. :(

Comment 10

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

The site still says

=======================
 the application detected an untested user platform. you may experience problems using this application. please consider using a tested platform.


the e-community development site supports the following platforms:

    windows
    macintosh (not tested)

the e-community development site supports the following web browsers:

    Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x and above
    Netscape Navigator 4.7x and above
========================

I don't think it is maintained in any way. Going to the domain
http://WWW.sterlingcommerce.com/ 
 redirects to
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/info/sterling-commerce/index.html