Works on IE, fails on Firefox

06-11-2009 12:58 AM |

I am helping a friend with a website that uses Silverlight. The site works fine with IE but fails with Firefox. We are getting lots of site complaints so we are hoping to get a solution without having to move to Flash. In one user example he was using Firefox 3.0.10. When visiting this page, www.ionoptions.com/opening it tells the users they need to install Silverlight. They install it, come back to the page and it says they need to install Silverlight. I created a test password that I will leave up for a few days.

username: test@test.com

password: test9876

 How can we get past this? Is there a solution or do we need to move to Flash?

Re: Works on IE, fails on Firefox

06-11-2009 1:36 AM |

I tested it, and here's the result.

IE 8: Passed
Chrome: Passed
Safari: Passed

Firefox 3.0.10:  Failed
Opera: Failed

I suspect there is something wrong with your install script.  I would suggest you create a project from scratch and see what the recommended way to reference Silverlight XAP looks like.  Test that it works on all platforms, and then replace whatever code you currently has with that.

Switching to Flash because of this minor problem sounds like an overkill.

Re: Works on IE, fails on Firefox

06-11-2009 9:24 AM |

Each video / audio was created with Expression Encoder 2 along with the Silverlight Streaming plug in for publishing. I have been through the procedure multiple times because it is being used by non-programmer folks. The process is to go to new project, import the single audio/video, select the player skin in Expression, then encode with auto-publish. Once published the user just does a cut/paste type operation from the block of HTML displayed in Expression or on the silverlight.live.com site into an admin page on the website.

The strange thing is that on Firefox it keeps complaining that Silverlight needs to be installed. I would guess at this point there is some issue with the silverlight install package. Or maybe something else. But it is generating a lot of user and company frustration with Silverlight.

 This is the code that appears for each entry on the page. Of course the URL is slightly different for each video/audio package:

<tr class="rgRow" id="ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_RadGrid1_ctl00__2">

Re: Works on IE, fails on Firefox

06-12-2009 11:59 PM |

Well.... so I opened a support ticket and the support person suggested that I advise all the web site users to use IE. Is that where we are going to end up with Silverlight?

 Just call me frustrated!

Re: Works on IE, fails on Firefox

06-17-2009 6:23 PM |

Hi, Ssmegner!

I tested your site with Firefox and the login data you provided.
When I'm logged in and try to refresh the page that contains
the Silverlight items I'm returned immediately to the login page!?!
If I try to log in again from that page (login) I get an alert
that 'state is invalid and might be corrupt'.
Could something be wrong with your state handling?
What are you using? ViewState?
Could that be part of your problem?

Re: Works on IE, fails on Firefox

06-18-2009 1:05 AM |

Jonathan,

The silverlight package is created solely by Expression Encoder 2 and uploaded to the silverlight streaming site automatically. We do zero coding or changing any scripts. Some of the packages are audio only and some are video. We open Expression Encoder, import audio/video, select player skin from the available list, then encode + publish. We then cut/paste the URL which is shown inside of Expression Encoder into the website. So I suspect the scripting created by Encoder is not working properly on Firefox or incorrectly detecting a different browser. When encoding an audio it uploads 13 files into the package. Videos upload 14 files which is essentially the 13 files plus a JPG for the thumbnail. If we had changed any of the silverlight package in some way I would be suspect about the actions we are taking. Aside from the Firefox browser itself the issue is 100% microsoft code either in the silverlight installer or the package created by Encoder. cannot be changed in any way. In particular autoload=true which is a big problem. When a user hits a page with 10 videos showing they ALL start to stream down at the same time even if the user only wants to watch the latest one. This behavior cannot be changed. So that is the main reason we went to Expression Encoder. We select a different player skin and uncheck autoload and autoplay. The rest is default.

The interesting thing is that if we upload a video directly into silverlight.live.com the default package created online does not have this Firefox issue. The script in the package seems to detect and work with Firefox properly. Unfortunately there is a big issue with that solution. The default player

 MeanGreenLizard,

Yes we have a session state issue and it does require you to reauthenticate when switching pages or returning to the same page. Unfortunately that is all being managed by another person that has assumed web code nazi status and won't let us into that section of the code.

Re: Works on IE, fails on Firefox

06-18-2009 11:01 AM |

Jonathan,

Awesome. That fixed the issue. Just a comment about Microsoft Update. Microsoft Update picks up the Visual Studio and other Microsoft product updates. There is a service pack for Encoder and Blend and neither shows in Microsoft Update. I know this is probably outside of your area but someone needs to fix that. It would have saved tons of frustration with us, our users and many peoples' impression of Silverlight in general.

 BTW, I worked for Microsoft for 9 years until I was laid off recently.

Re: Works on IE, fails on Firefox

06-19-2009 5:36 AM |

 Hi,

I have a silverlight 2 application that works fine with IE 7& 8 but not with Mozilla FF 3.0.1.How do I fix the issue?