PWB crashes on yahoo.com

[John MacDonald]

We noticed this yesterday. Whenever we try to go to http://www.yahoo.com, PWB crashes (sorry, I didn't copy down the specific error message). However, if a patron who wants to read their Yahoo email goes directly to mail.yahoo.com, it works just fine.

The version of PWB is 2.11.4
We're not using the URL.txt file
The computers are using Win XP SP3

Hoping someone can help!

[Scott]

You should start by upgrading to the current version 2.11.9.

http://www.teamsoftwaresolutions.com/fo ... ?f=1&t=709

Please note Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8 are loosing all Microsoft support in April so many web sites are not supporting this combination going forward.

--Scott

[John MacDonald]

You should start by upgrading to the current version 2.11.9.

http://www.teamsoftwaresolutions.com/fo ... ?f=1&t=709

Please note Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8 are loosing all Microsoft support in April so many web sites are not supporting this combination going forward.

--Scott

Thanks Scott. We are in fact going to be replacing these computers in the next month with brand new Win 7 machines. I was just looking at a quick fix before then.

In the meantime, in lieu of updating PWB (which won't be on the new machines), I've played around with adding the line IEBrowserEmulation=7000 to the ini file. Seems to work.

John

[jsand]

I'm having the same problem with PWB 2.11.9 on WinXP with IE8 fully updated. When you navigate to http://www.yahoo.com in PWB, you get the "Public Web Browser has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." message. In regular IE on the same computer, but page loads, but with a popup that says "Compatibility View/A problem displaying yahoo.com caused Internet Explorer to refresh the webpage using Compatibility View. I can confirm that IE also does this on my own workstation on yahoo.com as well. It seems that PWB is crashing when IE reverts (or wants to revert) to compatibility mode on its own. Screenshots are attached.

Any ideas on this? I am also emailing you the PWB.ini

Jeff Sand
Villa Park Public Library
jsand@vppl.info

[Scott]

Try using PWB version 2.11.10 available on the Beta Downloads page. We tested this version of Windows XP with IE 8.0 with the Yahoo web site without issues.

You can also set the following in your INI file.

[Browser]
IEBrowserEmulation=7000

--Scott

[jsand]

(Scott - I also responded to your email again. Thank you)

I'm sorry - this is getting silly. A year ago Gmail (among other sites) was giving our patron warnings to upgrade to 8.0 becauase PWB was misidentifying itself as IE7 (reference: http://www.teamsoftwaresolutions.com/fo ... f=1&t=1441), and you had me edit the registry to force it into 8.0 compatibility mode. Now you are asking me to force it back into 7.0 across the board and break every website that is expecting 8.0? Why is PWB incapable of running the IE control with default compatibility options and just let it do its thing? Is there a real solution on the horizon, or do I just need to change to Windows 7? Am I going to have the same compatibility problems with IE9/10/11?

Edit: I tried removing the emulation key for PWB in the registry, and letting PWB 2.11.10 run normally. Now Yahoo works, but Gmail shows the patron the "It looks like you have enabled Internet Explorer Compatibility View. Gmail works best if you turn this off." message. Whatismybrowser.com shows "Your web browser is: Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP" but "Extra info about your browser: Internet Explorer 7 Compatibility View". So it is still not defaulting to 8.0 emulation as described in the readme, it is using 7.0 emulation.

[Scott]

The problem is almost all web sites that have IE specific functionality are no longer supporting any version of IE below 9.0 since Microsoft is dropping all support for versions of IE below 9.0.

Because of this, web sites are now not checking for IE 7.0 compatibility, but are checking for IE 8.0 and 9.0 compatibility. Thus switching IE 8.0 backing into 7.0 you are bypassing the check 8.0 check.

The solution, since Windows XP and IE 8.0 are not being supported at all after April, is to move to a version of IE that is being supported such as IE 9.0, 10.0, or 11.0, and Windows 7.0.

--Scott