363175 - maps.live.com, virtualearth.net - sniffs for "Firefox" in the user agent

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[Bob Reeves]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061208 BonEcho/2.0.0.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061208 BonEcho/2.0.0.1

No pushpins, HideControl not recognized at startup. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start above link in Firefox or Bon Echo
2. Map displays, no pushpins, controls show although disabled at startup in code
3. Go to page, display source

Actual Results:  
No special steps required - very reproducable


I reported this previously. I have to tell users to NOT use Firefox, or to add IE tab to switch engines. Sure would be nice if this worked natively, though...

Comment 1

[Régis Caspar]

The page provided in (URL) gives me a bunch of JS warnings and errors in Console² :
Error: d has no properties
Source file: http://local.live.com/veapi.ashx?v=1.3.0908172755.52
Line: 1

seems the revelant one...

Looks like INVALID or "Tech Evangelism" to me

Comment 2

[Bob Reeves]

Do I understand this is an MS Java problem and there is NOTHING I CAN DO to make this app work in Firefox / Bon Echo? (In reply to comment #1)

Don't understand the comment  'Looks like INVALID or "Tech Evangelism" to me'
> The page provided in (URL) gives me a bunch of JS warnings and errors in
> Console² :
> Error: d has no properties
> Source file: http://local.live.com/veapi.ashx?v=1.3.0908172755.52
> Line: 1
> 
> seems the revelant one...
> 
> Looks like INVALID or "Tech Evangelism" to me
> 

Comment 3

[Régis Caspar]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Do I understand this is an MS Java problem and there is NOTHING I CAN DO to
> make this app work in Firefox / Bon Echo? (In reply to comment #1)
No the problem is probably due to some MS specific javascript

> Don't understand the comment  'Looks like INVALID or "Tech Evangelism" to me'
see http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tech-evangelism/site/ about "Tech Evangelism"

Comment 4

[José Jeria]

Only error i get is the following:
Error: uncaught exception: Msn.Drawing.Exception: Your Web browser does not support SVG or VML. Some graphics features may not function properly.

And that the controls in the bottom are not visible. Only when you drag the map around you see them for a millisecond.

Comment 5

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

See http://mikeburnscoder.wordpress.com/2007/01/23/microsoft-virtual-earth-on-firefox-2/ - they apparently decided that the defining feature of versions of Firefox with sufficiently workable SVG support is that they are version whatever.5 through whatever.9. Changing my Firefox/2.0.0.3 useragent string to say that I'm using either Firefox/1.5 or Firefox/1.9 or Firefox/9.9 gives me pushpins and controls.

Comment 7

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

Yeah, this doesn't work in Camino-trunk either, and I'll bet it's equally broken in any Gecko browser without "Firefox" in the UA string, regardless of version number.

Comment 8

[Bob Reeves]

This application now works with Firefox 2.0.0.4, but strangely not with the same version of Iceweasel. Possibly related to comment above?

Comment 9

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

The Virtual Earth API file
http://maps.live.com/veapi.ashx?v=1.3.1115150037.31
sniffs for Firefox explicitly.

Gerv

Comment 10

[Steffen Wilberg]

http://maps.live.com/ redirects to http://intl.local.live.com/ if the user agent doesn't containt Firefox (like Bon Echo or Minefield).

It works fine with Bon Echo or Minefield nightlies with general.useragent.extra.firefox changed to start with Firefox.

Comment 12

[AndrewM]

(In reply to comment #10)
> http://maps.live.com/ redirects to http://intl.local.live.com/ if the user
> agent doesn't containt Firefox (like Bon Echo or Minefield).
> 
> It works fine with Bon Echo or Minefield nightlies with
> general.useragent.extra.firefox changed to start with Firefox.

Just to clarify for any others who run into this: I can't seem to get it to work when I set general.useragent.extra.firefox to just contain 'Firefox' or even start with 'Firefox'; e.g. setting it to 'Minefield preview Firefox/[VERSION]' or 'Firefox preview Minefield/[VERSION]' still means that I am redirected to http://intl.local.live.com/.

I think it has to be just 'Firefox/[VERSION]' for it to work.

Comment 13

[Rich Gray (:rbgray)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080313 SeaMonkey/1.1.9

maps.live.com now gives this message :
<<
Web browser and Live Maps are incompatible

The Web browser on this computer and Live Maps may not work well together.

To continue, install a browser that is more compatible with Live Maps. Or, continue to use Live Maps with your current browser, keeping in mind that some features may not work correctly.

    * Install Internet Explorer
    * Install Firefox
    * Continue to the map using this browser

>>
Seems to work just fine when I Continue.  Spoofing FF with Prefbar makes the message go away.

Comment 14

[RNicoletto]

WFM using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100824 Firefox/3.6.9

Comment 15

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

(In reply to comment #14)
> WFM using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9)
> Gecko/20100824 Firefox/3.6.9

Well, that's not really a valid test, because "Firefox" is present in that string, so that never should have exhibited the bug in the first place.

However, maps.live.com no longer exists. That now redirects to www.bing.com/maps , and that site seems to work fine in Camino with the "like Firefox" portion of the UA removed. This sounds FIXED to me.