Office Communicator web access doesn't open chat window

[Daniele Besana (WP-OK)]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

Microsoft Office Communicator web access 2007 is not working properly with Firefox/3.0b3 and RC1.
Login and contact list are show as expected, but trying to open a chat doesn't pop up any window.
Even message from other users are not received because no additional window is open.

I don't know how to troubleshoot this further.

Thanks
--
Daniele Besana

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri May 30 12:59:21 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Package: firefox-3.0 3.0~rc1+nobinonly-0ubuntu1~pollycoke1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-16-generic i686
UnreportableReason: This is not a genuine Ubuntu package

[Daniele Besana (WP-OK) (daniele-wpok)]

Tested creating a new profile (firefox -ProfileManager) and the problem is still there.
So this is not a profile issue.

Thanks

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 11:11:15AM -0000, Daniele Besana wrote:
> Tested creating a new profile (firefox -ProfileManager) and the problem is still there.
> So this is not a profile issue.
>

Use Help -> Report a Broken website to report site issues. We cannot
deal with inidividual pages.

 status invalid

 - Alexander

[Jeremy Labadie (jlabadie)]

Alexander, I am having the same problem. I used the report option to open the bug, and saw this existing bug. What do you need from me?

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Jeremy Labadie wrote:
> Alexander, I am having the same problem. I used the report option to
> open the bug, and saw this existing bug. What do you need from me?
>
>
Jeremy, What report option did you use? only thing that can be done is
to report broken website from Firefox menu for this issue This bug is
either a site issue or a microsoft site issue. As in it only accepts IE
sort of like Microsoft updates site only takes IE.

--
Sincerely Yours,
    John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

[Daniele Besana (WP-OK) (daniele-wpok)]

From Bug 193846:
+++
Shannon VanWagner wrote on 2008-08-14: (permalink)

I'm using Firefox/3.0.1 and the communicator sub-window loads and shows my contacts but neither double-clicking the contact nor right-clicking the contact, then "Send an Instant Message" does anything. Apparently what it should do is create yet another child window with the chat dialog for the contact where you can type something in and see messages coming back.

I tried this both on Firefox/3.0.1 on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 and even on WinXP Firefox/3.0.1 and it doesn't work in either place. I've used the "Report broken site" link in Firefox/3.0.1 but since my OCWA is an internal server, I'm not sure how much information they received from my report.

I also tried epiphany web browser - same behavior as described above.

What works for me is the SeaMonkey 1.1.9 Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080313 SeaMonkey/1.1.9 (Ubuntu-1.1.9+nobinonly-0ubuntu1), as it allows the proper child windows to launch and I can chat with my Windows bound buddies.

Please let me know if you need more details.

Regards,

Shannon VanWagner
++++

The problem didn't exist in firefox 2 untill a recent package upgrade.
The application was working before on Firefox, this is a problem that started with FF3 and then with FF2 as well.

It's really a problem, what can we do to help providing a fix?

Thanks
--
Daniele

[Shannon VanWagner (shannon-vanwagner)]

Something I've found is that the Communicator Web Access works if the "user agent" is switched to Win/IE7. Although the switch has to be performed only in the child popup window(the one that has the contacts), and to do this you have to "customize" the toolbar of the child window to have the user-agent switcher icon on it. If you change
the user agent at the login window, you will not be able to launch the popup window (this is very screwy eh?).

if you want to load the Firefox "User Agent Switcher" plugin, get it here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

So although this will make the communicator work in Firefox 3.0, I don't use this method myself because I don't want to cloak the fact that I am using GNU/Linux and Firefox. This reason is entirely political on my part because I want to show as many webservers out there as possible that I am using GNU/Linux and Firefox to surf the web.

After examining the "overall.js" javascript file that appears to control the Office communicator website experience, it seems there is a function there that checks for a win/IE platform(as well as other browsers and mac), and I would suspect that since Firefox 3 does not validate as a "known" browser to the javascript, it is breaking the
functionality of the program in Firefox 3. This is just silly because as soon as I switch the "user agent" to win/IE7, the program works just fine in Firefox 3.

Shannon VanWagner
http://healthysystem.blogspot.com

Get your cool GNU/Linux shirt here:
http://free.spreadshirt.com

[Shannon VanWagner (shannon-vanwagner)]

Oh and as I mentioned on the other bug....

As a workaround to this problem:
I simply installed SeaMonkey and am using it to load only the Web Communicator chat window while I surf with Firefox 3 on my Ubuntu Hardy machine at work.

It seems to me that the JAVASCRIPT that runs the Web Communicator is the problem here.. but that is just my quick analysis.

This makes me wonder how many other websites out there are not using an updated JS function to check the Firefox version and are therefore detecting FF3 as "unknown" and are stripping functionality from the user experience!!??

Shannon VanWagner
http://healthysystem.blogspot.com

Get your cool GNU/Linux shirt here:
http://free.spreadshirt.com

[Peter Fales (9-launchpad-net-fales-lorenz-net)]

Seeing similar problems here. Strangely, it works for some users and doesn't work for others and we haven't yet been able to find the reason. However, for the users that it doesn't work for, we've found that older versions of firefox *do* work. Specifically, firefox versions 2.0.0.4 through 2.0.0.14 do work and are able to open the chat windows. 2.0.0.15, 2.0.0.16, and 3.0.1 are unable to open the chat windows.

For the systems where the "stock" firefox does not work, we've been able to make it work by adding the "NoScript" plugin from noscript.net. (and adding our CWA site as a trusted site in the NoScript configuration)

[Claudio Marcial (caudio)]

Im having this same issue on my Ubuntu Firefox 3.0.3, when I try my company's web access under Firefox 3.0.3 on Windows XP, it works great, I can open conversation and chat with out problems, but on Ubuntu im only seeing the contact lists, and I can not talk to anyone.. I can only use some functions such as mark user, look on the corporate directory and logout..

[Peter Fales (9-launchpad-net-fales-lorenz-net)]

Interesting, as for us Firefox 3 doesn't work on Windows XP either (though it does work if NoScript is installed). It might be useful to know how you're getting it to work under XP. Do you have any plugins installed?

[Daniele Besana (WP-OK) (daniele-wpok)]

Since 2 weeks it stopped working with SeaMonkey as well.
This was after a package upgrade.

Does anyone have a workaround for this?
Thanks

[Shannon VanWagner (shannon-vanwagner)]

I used the User Agent Switcher to show my Seamonkey browser as netscape on Vista. Get it here:
http://seamonkey.ilias.ca/browserfaq/UAspoofing

I use the Seamonkey to connect only with my company Communicator access.

At the same time, I use Firefox (without changing the browser stamp) to surf the Internet. I do this because it's important to show the web servers out there that there are GNU/Linux users surfing the web.

Cheers!

Shannon VanWagner
http://shannonvanwagner.com

[kbhat (kishanbhat)]

With Namaroka (Firefox 3.6.3.pre), user agent IE 7 did not show contacts or any other text for me.

I switched to iPhone 3.0 (comes with default install of user agent) and office web communicator works now!

Once logged in, I switch back to default user agent.