644105 - webmail.tiscali.co.uk - Site navigation fails in Firefox 4 due to bad user agent sniffing (also talktalk.co.uk/mail)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[geoff holmes]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C)
Build Identifier: firefox4

I cannot access my emails with F4.I can access them with IE8.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.open talktalk(tiscali)login page
2.email address and password entered
3.MyMail page opens but I can't open the Inbox
Actual Results:  
as above

Expected Results:  
can't open my Inbox

seems to be a bug in F4,everythings ok in IE8.everything was ok with F3

Comment 1

[Alex Lakatos[:AlexLakatos]]

Reporter, can you please provide a public testcase, like an public demo email & password combination? Thanks.

Comment 3

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

If that's your personal email address, please change your password immediately, this page is publicly accessible.

Comment 4

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

I have messaged Gerv to have comment 2 hidden (given that the login details their matches the reporters BMO account email, so isn't likely a demo account).

As for this issue, I have an old Tiscali account myself, and can confirm the issue using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.2a1pre) Gecko/20110323 Firefox/4.2a1pre ID:20110323074443

Will try and find a regression range shortly.

Comment 5

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Ok, appears to be bad user agent sniffing.

In the latest nightly (see comment 4 for exact version), changing this:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.2a1pre) Gecko/20110323 Firefox/4.2a1pre

To this:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.2a1pre) Gecko/20110323 Firefox/3.6.15

Makes the Inbox button work fine again.

Moving to Tech Evang.

Comment 6

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Comment hidden. And Geoff, you should use more secure passwords.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COU5T-Wafa4

Gerv

Comment 7

[geoff holmes]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Ok, appears to be bad user agent sniffing.
> In the latest nightly (see comment 4 for exact version), changing this:
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.2a1pre) Gecko/20110323
> Firefox/4.2a1pre
> To this:
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.2a1pre) Gecko/20110323 Firefox/3.6.15
> Makes the Inbox button work fine again.
> Moving to Tech Evang.

Can you tell me how to access "Mozilla/5.0(Windows NT 6.1 .......etc".Thanks

Comment 8

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Geoff, long term Tiscali need to fix their site, since they are (naughtily) depending on a certain browser version number. Changing (faking) the version number is enough to get Firefox 4 working with their webmail, which shows that it's not Firefox at fault, but the site code.

This bug has been moved to the tech evangelism section, which is where efforts are made to contact site authors and get them to fix their problems. However, they often listen much more to actual customers, so if you could contact them and say Firefox 4 doesn't work due to an error on their site, with a link back to here - it will help greatly with getting this resolved.

In the meantime, you can fake the user agent yourself, however be aware this is likely to break other sites, since Firefox 4 will then start appearing to be 3.6.x to them. 

1) Open about:config in a new tab
2) Right click in the middle and choose: New -> String
3) In the first box that pops up, enter:
general.useragent.override
4) In the second box that pops up, enter:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/3.6.15
5) Close about:config
6) Try Tiscali again

**Once Tiscali fix their problem, you must remember to reset this back to the default, or it will cause problems later on**

To reset the user agent back to normal:
1) Go to about:config
2) Type general.useragent.override in the filter box
3) Right click the entry that shows up and press reset

Comment 11

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Adding the Talktalk URL since it's the same company/webmail system, just a different portal.

Comment 13

[[:Cww]]

Tiscali users of Firefox 5 are hitting something similar: can't open emails.  It's probably still useragent sniffing.

Comment 16

[Derrick]

Sorry if I gave the impression that Firefox 4.0 is the rogue . It isn't it is Firefox 5.0

Comment 17

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

You may already realise this (and it may be that I'm misinterpreting comment 16), but Firefox is not at fault here.

Tiscali have implemented their webmail service in a way that breaks when the version number reported by the browser is higher than 3.6.x. As in comment 8, if you get Firefox 4 (or higher) to pretend that it's actually version is 3.6.x, then the webmail works fine, showing that it's purely Tiscali/Talk Talk's handling of the version number given, rather than a bug with Firefox.

ie: Tiscali need to fix this themselves, there is nothing that can be done (or should be done) in Firefox.

Comment 18

[Anthony]

Ref the header to this question and to confirm comment 16, there was no problem with Firefox 4, the issue was initially present on launch of Firefox 4 but was fixed by Tiscali/Talktalk. It would appear to be a repeat issue. 

I have just used the User Agent Switcher add-in, (with an alternate list of imported settings as linked on the authors site)as suggested in a response to my report of the problem, in firefox 5 to make it appear as firefox 4.01 and I am able to read my mails perfectly.

As comment 17 records it is likely a Tiscali/Talktalk issue.

Comment 19

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

whoever has a login/pass on Tiscali could check the current Web site?

When entering  	http://webmail.tiscali.co.uk/
we are redirected to http://www.talktalk.co.uk/mail/

Comment 20

[Anthony]

This is correct, talktalk is the new operating name of tiscali since two years ago. The site works as it should with Firefox version31. I have a couple of tiscali, now talktalk accounts.

Comment 21

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

Thank you Anthony :)