269169 - accuweather.com - Firefox won't process WXML type file

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[Bob Hawbaker]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041001 Firefox/0.10.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041001 Firefox/0.10.1

This url is a paid subscription from Accuweather.com.  Works with IE 6.0

After loading (the weather map doesn't load), I get the following message:

Opening acc_wscope

You have chosen to open acc_wscope
which is a: WXML file
from:  /http://accuweather.wdtinc.com/cgi-bin/wscope/

What should Firefox do with this file?

	o	Open with  [Browse...]
	o	save to disk
	[]	do this automatically for files like this from now on


			[OK]	[Cancel]



Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Probably have to be a subscriber to duplicate
2.  Just load the URL
3.

Actual Results:  
Page template loads, but the customized weather map is blank, and the Firefox
message (in "Details", above) appears

Expected Results:  
Load the radar map -- customized for my location.

I asked Accuweather about this.  They say they do not intend to build a plugin
for Firefox

May not be an actual bug, but another plugin needed.

Some of my on-line banking does not work with Firefox, either.  While the idea
of Firefox is good, and it seems to be fast and stable, if I can't use it for my
"normal" activities it won't be of much use to me.

Thanks,

Bob Hawbaker
[e-mail]

Comment 1

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

In all likelyhood this is a techevangelism bug. Since the site requires a login,
can you please save the page as html and attach it here?

Comment 2

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

-> TE

Comment 3

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

Bob, they are most likely serving the "WXML" document with their own "made up"
mime type that we don't recognize. It seems from the XML part of the type name
that it is really an xml file and if they served it as text/xml or
application/xml we could handle it. IE is well known for "guessing" mime types
which leads to inexperienced web designers/developers/administrators not knowing
the ins and outs of properly configuring mime types. Properly handling mime
types is important to distinguishing between safe and unsafe content which is
why IE has been vulnerable to mime type spoofs in the past. Since you pay for
this service, please contact them, point them to this bug and ask them to fix
their configuration. We will be happy to discuss the technical details with them
if they wish.

Thanks.

Comment 4

[Betty Berger]

AccuWeather.com is taking over my computer.  I don't ask for weather but it pops up when I ask for something else.  Delete it.

Comment 5

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> AccuWeather.com is taking over my computer.  I don't ask for weather but it
> pops up when I ask for something else.  Delete it.
> 

Betty, we don't have anything to do with accuweather. I assume you installed an extension or toolbar at some time in the past. If you are using Firefox, use the Firefox Tools->Addons menu and remove the accuweather extension. If you aren't using Firefox, then it is installed somewhere else, mostly likely in IE. Go to the Windows Start->Settings->Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs and remove it there. 

Comment 6

[Bob Hawbaker]

I fixed my original problem by dumping Windows and going to OSX.  It solved a lot of problems.

Comment 7

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

FIXED, since Firefox on Windows and Firefox on OS X process MIME types the same way.