780393 - portauthority.org/paac displays poorly without Gecko/20100101

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Attachment: What the site looks like in Aurora and Nightly

I noticed this problem when Aurora 16.0a2 was Nightly 16.0a1. Now both Aurora and Nightly do not render this page properly.

Site works with:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0

Doesn't work with:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:16.0) Gecko/16.0 Firefox/16.0
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Firefox/17.0

Comment 1

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Contacted the Port Authority, and they responded with,

"Thank you for contacting the Port Authority. Your information has been forwarded to the appropriate department."

Comment 2

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Site now works with Aurora because the UA is Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:16.0) Gecko/20120818 Firefox/16.0

Comment 3

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Site broken again in Aurora, with today's update to:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Firefox/17.0

Build ID:20120828042007

Comment 4

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

OK. I decided to close this as WFM because it appears each release changes Gecko/Version back to Gecko/20100101 and the site then works. 

Confusing, but as long as it works in releases users (me) will be happy.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0

Comment 5

[rsx11m]

Note that bug 588909 remains active in the aurora channel (currently 17.0), at least for now, and has been on trunk. It has only been backed out for previous versions in the aurora channel due to problems with various sites.

Your case appears similar, thus I'd suggest reopening this bug assuming that, with Gecko 17.0, the UA-string change may become permanent also for releases.

Comment 6

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Reopening because the UA string in Firefox 17.0 now reads Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Firefox/17.0, and the site no longer displays properly.

Still displays properly in Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:16.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/16.0

Comment 7

[rsx11m]

Confirming, and it also works the other way (i.e., replacing Gecko/<date> by Gecko/<version> in a current release causes the same display issues, thus definitely related to UA string and not some other difference between Gecko versions).

I assume that this is supposed to block the originating bug as a regression, thus setting the respective dependencies.

Comment 8

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

On Firefox for Android Beta, the desktop page prompts for a download instead of displaying anything at all.

Comment 9

[David E. Ross]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:17.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.14.1

This is still a valid Tech Evangelism bug.  The problem involves improper UA sniffing.  With the UA string above (SeaMonkey's "Advertise Firefox compatibility" disabled), the cited Web page has links and graphics overlaying each other, making a hard-to-read mess.  I see this with SeaMonkey 2.14.1, which includes the fix for bug #815743.

Comment 10

[rsx11m]

Yes and no - this bug was opened for the Gecko/<date> missing in the UA string and thus causing the site to fail, the lack of the Firefox compatibility portion is independent from bug 588909 and a hence separate issue. Please open/clone a new bug for the compatibility token, otherwise it's getting confusing.