688242 - globeandmail.com - Fennec doesn't display mobile version of website on phone

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

Description:
Navigating to http://globeandmail.com on my HTC Desire phone displays the full version of the site. Their is a mobile version of the site that displays when using the default and Miren browsers. I expect that Firefox will also display the mobile version of the site. (Note that you can view the mobile version by clicking the link at the top of the full site.) The mobile version is preferable due to the small screen size.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Navigate to http://globeandmail.com

Actual results:
The full version of the site is displayed.

Expected results:
The mobile version of the site should be displayed.

Env:
Aurora 8.0a2
HTC Desire phone
Android 2.2

Comment 1

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

From their relevant mobile detection code: 

$.namespace('globe.mobile');
globe.mobile.mobileSmartDevice ="iphone,itouch,blackberry,android";
globe.mobile.agent = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
globe.mobile.phones = globe.mobile.mobileSmartDevice.split(',');
for(var i=0; i<globe.mobile.phones.length;i++){
if (globe.mobile.phones[i] != "" && globe.mobile.agent.indexOf(globe.mobile.phones[i]) > -1) {$("#mobileDetection").show();} }
$("#mobileDetection").click(function(){
if($.cookie('mobile.redirect')){
$.cookie('mobile.redirect', null,{domain:'theglobeandmail.com', expires:7});
location.href = "?service=mobile";
} else {
location.href = "?service=mobile";
}
});

Globe and Mail should be redirecting based on the 'android' string detection. Not sure why it's not working properly.

Comment 2

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

In reply to comment 1:
That is for the mobile version link at the top of the site. That code adds a click event handler that redirects you to the mobile site.

Comment 3

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

It seems like this is done server-side, probably some kind of buggy uagent detection.
I checked this with Rex Swain http header viewer: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
With the Stock browser, I'm getting redirected to the mobile site, but not with Fennec.

This is what the STock browser is sending as a uagent:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2.2; nl-nl; LG-P970 Build/FRG83G)

This is what Fennec is sending as a uagent:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Android; Linux armv7l; rv:9.0a1) Gecko/20110920 Firefox/9.0a1 Fennec/9.0a1

Comment 4

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

I think this problem is bigger than globeandmail.com. I see the same behaviour with imdb.com and wordpress.com blogs such as lawrencemandel.com. All of these have mobile sites that should display by default using Firefox on my phone. All do display the mobile site by default when using the stock Web browser on my phone.

Comment 5

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

(In reply to Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] from comment #4)
> I think this problem is bigger than globeandmail.com. I see the same
> behaviour with imdb.com and wordpress.com blogs such as lawrencemandel.com.

Yeah, see

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=fennec&product=Tech%20Evangelism

for a quick-and-dirty estimate of the size of this problem.

If there are other sites that need evangelism, they need their own bugs, obviously.

Comment 6

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

File new bugs for other sites that have problems. They are not necessarily relate to this bug. Especially since this is tech evangelism now.

Comment 7

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

I have filed bug 689687 to track the imdb.com issue and bug 689689 to track the wordpress.com issue.

Comment 8

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Thanks for filing! I guess we need someone to contact these sites, if we want them to fix their code.

Comment 9

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

Martijn, we should talk as my team (engineering program management) may be able to help with this. I see that there are more sites with this problem than the few that I have discovered.

Comment 10

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Oh, sorry, I didn't even notice you were an employee for Mozilla (which I am too).

There was a discussion about this on the mobile (internal, I think?) some time ago, I forwarded you on some of the messages.

I guess we, as the mobile QA group should talk to your team, then? I'm pretty sure there are tons of sites, which don't take into account Fennec.

Comment 11

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

I'll set up some time for us to speak next week. As a start I think we need information to point people to that describes the issue and how to fix it. Specifically, what the Fennec UA string is for tablets and phones. Something like [1] but perhaps more up-to-date.

[1]https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Gecko_user_agent_string_reference

Comment 12

[Martijn Wargers (dead)]

Lawrence, I saw you set a meeting request at 16:00pm my time, which is 07:00am PDT, and 10:00am Toronto time. Is that correct?
Aaron and Kevin from my team are interested in attending.

There was an interesting discussion about this some time ago, btw:
https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform/browse_thread/thread/dfdceafba4c5bd87/7b5c3336be37e2cf?hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q=Firefox+Mobile+UA+and+You&pli=1#7b5c3336be37e2cf

Comment 13

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

Martijn, correct. I have added both Aaron and Kevin to the meeting invite.

Comment 14

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

Update: My testing today confirms the theglobeandmail.com now redirects to their mobile site on my phone and tablet. I'm not sure that this is the correct behaviour on a tablet (I'd prefer to see the full site) but I think this is better overall.

Comment 15

[Lawrence Mandel [:lmandel] (use needinfo)]

Strike my comment 14 from the record.

I must have done something with my browser when testing earlier. After blowing it away and reinstalling I'm back to the behaviour that I originally saw. The full site is shown instead of the mobile site.

Comment 16

[Peter Retzer (:pretzer)]

I visted the site with today's nightly and got a redirect to the mobile site.