Closed Bug 620344 Opened 13 years ago Closed 13 years ago

AJAX loading of «more answers» at Formspring is broken in recent Firefox beta versions

Categories

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: mithgol, Unassigned)

References

()

Details

(Keywords: regression)

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b7) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b7
Build Identifier: Firefox 4.0b7

Formspring.me is a popular site where each user is being asked questions. (The second fastest-rising query in 2010 in three countries, as http://blog.formspring.me/2010/12/the-world-searches-for-formspring/ reports.)

Unfortunately, it seems that Firefox 4.0b7 (and the previous beta as well) is not capable of loading (AJAX-powered) history of answers for any of the Formspring users.

Some other browsers (such as IE and Safari) load answers pretty well, so that must be some bug or incompatibility between Firefox and the Formsping's JS code, and it must be introduced in some recent Firefox changes.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Visit http://www.formspring.me/krylov and click on «More Answers from Konstantin Krylov» hyperlink at the bottom of the page. (You may as well visit http://www.formspring.me/teotmin and click on «More Answers from Teo» hyperlink at the bottom of the page. You may as well try any other Formspring user that answered more than 20 questions.)

2. The «loading more questions» message appears, with an animated «throbber».
Actual Results:  
Nothing else happens. The «loading more questions» message is stuck.

Expected Results:  
After a few seconds of network activity, the next page of recent questions (and answers) is loaded (by AJAX) and displayed.

(Note: the expected behaviour actually happens in WebKit 3.1 on Android 2.2 and in Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP, for example.)

I am not sure whether it is a DOM problem, or networking problem, or JS framework problem, and I am afraid I will have not enought spare time to investigate it thoroughly before 2011. Sorry.

I am just a user of Formspring.me and does not have any idea of its inner (server-based) logic.

If you can (or cannot) reproduce the above described problem, please say so before asking me to try the recent nightly build or Firefox safe mode. (Though you probably won't need me any longer if you can reproduce it.)
This is indeed working on 3.6 but not with a nightly build.

I suggest to block on at least until we found the exact reasons.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
blocking2.0: --- → ?
Ever confirmed: true
OS: Windows XP → All
Hardware: x86 → All
Version: unspecified → Trunk
Mounir, a regression range would sure help!  ;)
Last good nightly: 2010-04-05 First bad nightly: 2010-04-06

Pushlog: http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=c4df407008b5&tochange=523d0f8e0926

I don't see any obvious push that could have break this. I guess I'm good to hg bisect these changes.
http://www.formspring.me/js/lab.js has

is_gecko=(function(o){o[o]=o+"";return o[o]!=o+""})(new String("__count__"))

Regression from bug 551529, --> Tech Evang.
Assignee: nobody → english-us
Blocks: 551529
Component: DOM → English US
Keywords: testcase-wanted
Product: Core → Tech Evangelism
QA Contact: general → english-us
Version: Trunk → unspecified
LABjs has already released a new version that doesn't use this inference anymore. They simply need to update to the latest LABjs (v1.0.4).
I filed a support request (http://formspringme.zendesk.com/requests/56125) with formspring to get them to update LABjs.
If they ignore that support request, then a dedicated item in Firefox release notes for the next beta will be needed.
Keywords: relnote
Formspring users who have set their profile to only accept questions from other formspring users get a "Ask anonymously" check box underneath their question box.  This box appears even if you're not logged in.  Normally, upon clicking the send button for these users a fancy AJAX box comes up asking you to sign in or register.  This works on Google Chrome so if you have that sitting around you can see what the correct behavior is.  Today's nightly (I haven't tested any other nightlies) don't show the "Ask anonymously" box at all and nothing happens when you click send.  http://www.formspring.me/cairnarvon is an example user who has set their profile to only accept requests from registered users.

The more answers AJAX is still broken so I guess they haven't updated yet.  I haven't tested whether updating the LABjs fixes the Ask Anonymously checkbox.  If this is a separate bug I apologize for not filing it.
It could be related to the bad UA sniffing the website is doing. Please, open a separate bug if this bug is still reproducible when LABjs is updated.
Assignee: english-us → nobody
Component: English US → General
Product: Tech Evangelism → Core
QA Contact: english-us → general
blocking2.0: ? → ---
Assignee: nobody → english-us
Component: General → English US
Product: Core → Tech Evangelism
QA Contact: general → english-us
A pair of other Formspring bugs that exist in Firefox 4 only (probably LABjs-related as well):

1) For registered and logged-in users, «Smile» button does not respond to click.

2) For registered and logged-in users, the http://www.formspring.me/follow/stream page («Home» aka «Following») does not extend when «More Responses» hyperlink is activated.
I can confirm they are in fact still using a well out-of-date version of LABjs (probably at least v1.0.3 or earlier). The current stable release of LABjs is 1.2.0. I will also try to reach out and evangelize to the site to upgrade.
I just spoke with a developer from Formspring. He said they'd update to the latest LABjs right away, so we should be able to re-verify that addresses their site breakage soon. I asked him to let me know when that was live.
Received word that Formspring has now deployed lated LABjs v1.2.0, and confirmed that it is in fact live on their site. I don't have a Formspring acct so I can't confirm if it fixes the breakages reported here. Someone else, please try the site to see if it's resolved?
I don't have a fromspring account and I can load "More responses from <<User>>" just fine. I guess that means it is fixed?
(In reply to comment #14)
> I don't have a fromspring account and I can load "More responses from <<User>>"
> just fine. I guess that means it is fixed?

My mistake, I'm using 3.6.13 *facepalm* I'll be right back with more accurate results. :V (I don't like installing two browsers on one machine though. As I know the beta of firefox for windows will stay aside the real version of firefox even after the final of Firefox 4 is released. You should probably give an option in the beta installer to overwrite the stable version if already installed.)
Yeah, it's working in Firefox 4 Beta 11.

Also: Love the fact that the location bar in Firefox 4 b11 is still focused when you create a tab even though you can't see the location bar, lol.
Works as well in Firefox Mobile (aka Fennec) beta 4.

I guess the bug is RESOLVED FIXED and someone has to erase the corresponding piece of release notes.

Thanks, everyone.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Removing «relnote» keyword (I guess it'll help the fixed bug to disappear from the release notes;please correct me if I am wrong).
Keywords: relnote
Removed from RC relnotes
Product: Tech Evangelism → Tech Evangelism Graveyard
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