449805 - smithandnoble.com - Javascript does not complete loading due to really strange capability testing

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[Warren Keuffel]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080803 Camino/1.6.3 (like Firefox/2.0.0.16)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080803 Camino/1.6.3 (like Firefox/2.0.0.16)

As above

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
As above

Expected Results:  
Like Safari

Comment 1

[Smokey Ardisson (offline for a while; not following bugs - do not email)]

The link in the URL field does absolutely noting in either Camino or Safari.  Please provide more detailed Steps to Reproduce.

Comment 2

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

You have to visit the site first so it can set a cookie or two, apparently, because I was able to get it to load a page with the URL in this bug once I had browsed around the site a bit.

I see the behaviour the reporter is talking about but I'd bet it's a problem in the page, not anything that Camino is doing.

Comment 3

[Stuart Morgan]

The error is that "skin" is undefined:

// id browsers
var iex=(document.all);
var nav=(document.layers);
var old=(navigator.appName=="Netscape" && !document.layers && !document.getElementById);
var n_6=(window.sidebar);

// assign object
var skin;
if(nav) skin=document.pup;
if(iex) skin=pup.style;
if(n_6) skin=document.getElementById("pup").style;


It's crappy browser detection; Safari passes only because they implement enough IE-specific JS to fool the site, and Firefox works because they have a sidebar. Someone should tell this site that "window.sidebar" and "modern Gecko-based browser" are not the same thing (and that IE and Netscape 6 are not the only browsers that aren't "old")

This is either INVALID or a TE bug.

Comment 4

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

I'm gonna kick it to TE, because there are other very simple ways of detecting "modern browser" besides using something stupid like window.sidebar. In fact, they could just remove the appName check from "old" and they'd pretty much have something that worked.

Please complain to the site and let them know they're seriously broken. I'd rather they just use normal user-agent-based sniffing (for "Gecko", of course) than something like this.

Comment 5

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

INCOMPLETE due to lack of activity since the end of 2009.

If someone is willing to investigate the issues raised in this bug to determine whether they still exist, *and* work with the site in question to fix any existing issues, please feel free to re-open and assign to yourself.

Sorry for the bugspam; filter on "NO MORE PRE-2010 TE BUGS" to remove.