Firefox 5 vs IE9 on MSDN
-
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
-
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
Or you just happened to get lucky with Foxy
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering” - Wernher von Braun -
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
I get the same problem with IE9 and backing up remote MSSQL databases. The page says it's doing the backup but never completes and times out. Firefox (any version) works perfectly every time. It must be an IE9 issue. The older I get the better I was mikeo
-
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
I have been using IE for a long time.Since IE 3 if not earlier. I have put up with all the crap IE itself gave me occasionally and the other crap: people shoving those ACID tests down my throat. I defended it and I continued to use it because it worked for me. Plus knowing the UI well I know where to find things I need. The paradox is that this IE9 crap which should have been the culmination of Microsoft's eforts to make it better due to pressure from the competition, it started to fail me in so many places that I started using more and more Firefox. I tried Chrome and Opera but currently I find Firefox the best. I am sorry but they have to fix it 'cause it's broken. Until then my default browser for the first time is Firefox. Cheers.
giuchici
-
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
I can barely stand using IE. At least MS is finally making an effort to follow web standards (yeah). Despite my dislike for IE, what you're describing is really odd. The database transactions happen server side, so IE's only job is to submit a POST request with your data inside and the server should take care of the rest. Obviously something got submitted if your account was charged $1. The server side behavior should be unaffected by the browser UNLESS IE and firefox submitted different data (for instance, IE didn't pick up on one of the form fields for some reason...) Firefox is awesome. I love all the extensions in it. Easily my browser of choice for web development. However, more and more I've been using Chrome b/c it's crazy fast - but I still use firefox if I'm doing web development. No browser can beat firefox's developer tools (firebug, web developer extension, etc...).
-
I can barely stand using IE. At least MS is finally making an effort to follow web standards (yeah). Despite my dislike for IE, what you're describing is really odd. The database transactions happen server side, so IE's only job is to submit a POST request with your data inside and the server should take care of the rest. Obviously something got submitted if your account was charged $1. The server side behavior should be unaffected by the browser UNLESS IE and firefox submitted different data (for instance, IE didn't pick up on one of the form fields for some reason...) Firefox is awesome. I love all the extensions in it. Easily my browser of choice for web development. However, more and more I've been using Chrome b/c it's crazy fast - but I still use firefox if I'm doing web development. No browser can beat firefox's developer tools (firebug, web developer extension, etc...).
It is actually possible for the problem to happen at the browser side: consider if you're doing postbacks to the server using, say, an invisible iframe which, when it's finished executing, is supposed to call some javascript method in the parent frame to refresh the outer page. Different browsers handle interaction between iframes slightly differently, most notably in terms of the outer frame addressing the inner one: in some browsers it's window.frames.myframe; in others, it's document.frames["myframe"] and so on. Could be that IE9 just isn't recognizing whatever code Microsoft is using to perform this interaction, so while the invisible frame is loading the right page (which is why the $1 charges are showing up) it just isn't notifying the outer (visible) frame properly when it's done, which is why it looks to the user as though nothing has happened.
-
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
I only use IE when it is required. Even still, I always attempt with FireFox first. FF may be the Swiss Army Knife of browsers ...and some people actually say this is the characteristic that prevents it from being the speed front-runner ...or whatever criteria they use - but the Swiss Army Knife is the utilitarian's dream ... The only complaint I've had with FireFox is that my add-ins may not be updated right on time with a new version of FF ...big deal ...but, my FF will always be more reliable than IE ...which should be compared to a butter knife at the steak table.
Boarman communicate with honesty, purpose, and conviction ...
-
It is actually possible for the problem to happen at the browser side: consider if you're doing postbacks to the server using, say, an invisible iframe which, when it's finished executing, is supposed to call some javascript method in the parent frame to refresh the outer page. Different browsers handle interaction between iframes slightly differently, most notably in terms of the outer frame addressing the inner one: in some browsers it's window.frames.myframe; in others, it's document.frames["myframe"] and so on. Could be that IE9 just isn't recognizing whatever code Microsoft is using to perform this interaction, so while the invisible frame is loading the right page (which is why the $1 charges are showing up) it just isn't notifying the outer (visible) frame properly when it's done, which is why it looks to the user as though nothing has happened.
-
It is actually possible for the problem to happen at the browser side: consider if you're doing postbacks to the server using, say, an invisible iframe which, when it's finished executing, is supposed to call some javascript method in the parent frame to refresh the outer page. Different browsers handle interaction between iframes slightly differently, most notably in terms of the outer frame addressing the inner one: in some browsers it's window.frames.myframe; in others, it's document.frames["myframe"] and so on. Could be that IE9 just isn't recognizing whatever code Microsoft is using to perform this interaction, so while the invisible frame is loading the right page (which is why the $1 charges are showing up) it just isn't notifying the outer (visible) frame properly when it's done, which is why it looks to the user as though nothing has happened.
This seems to work for me:
var iframeSupport =
{
// Browser Determination
firefox: (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf("firefox") >= 0),
ie: (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf("msie") >= 0),
opera: (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf("opera") >= 0),
safari: (navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf("safari") >= 0),// Find an iFrame
findFrame: function (name)
{
var f = null;
if (this.firefox || this.opera || this.safari)
{
f = eval("window.frames." + name);
if (!f)
f = document.getElementById(name);
}
if ((this.safari || this.firefox) && !f)
f = document.getElementById(name);
else
f = document.frames[name];
return f;
}
}; -
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
-
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
So let me get this straight, if I created an AutoIT script to simulate clicking the msdn subscription renew button using IE9 a million times (> 3 times appears to be a bit lenient... so I'm assuming there is no limit), I'll have a million dollars in my bank account?
-
So let me get this straight, if I created an AutoIT script to simulate clicking the msdn subscription renew button using IE9 a million times (> 3 times appears to be a bit lenient... so I'm assuming there is no limit), I'll have a million dollars in my bank account?
No, you have to go a bit further along the process than that, and you wouldn't have a million dollars in your bank account but rather a million, one-dollar charges against the credit card (assuming your credit-card issuer let it go that far). But you don't get there just from clicking the renew button; you would have to proceed to the next page and then click (or have your AutoIT script simulate clicking) the "Continue" button after filling out the form with your name and credit-card information. Then, if the process times out, the one-dollar approval charge won't be cancelled and replaced by the actual renewal charge, but instead will remain as an apparent charge against the card, to Microsoft's benefit. The system allows Microsoft to confirm that the card is legitimate before moving ahead with the actual charge. You don't get anything out of it in any case; Microsoft does. But even if you do this a million times without ever getting to the final renewal page, the one-dollar charges appear to the credit-card issuer as authorization charges and they wouldn't pay those amounts to Microsoft.
-
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
Well, actually the time taken by IE9 was not waste of time; it was doing it for security of your data. You should thank Microsoft for its great sense of security of data, at the cost of your time. ;P
Regards, Jwalant Natvarlal Soneji
-
I had an odd experience yesterday. It was time to renew my annual Visual Studio/MSDN subscription so I signed onto MSDN with my main browser, IE9. I clicked the "Renew" button, then after a couple of timeouts that I attributed to a lot of traffic on the site, eventually got to a page where my credit-card information was requested. I entered it, then hit the "Continue" button and after a timeout got IE's standard "Unable to connect" message. Hitting reload put me back at the credit-card page again. I tried this several more times, hoping that I'd get lucky and hit "Continue" just as there was a lull in traffic. It never happened. Finally I gave up and logged off without completing the renewal. I tried again several hours later, thinking that because it had then gotten to be evening on the West Coast the traffic might have abated somewhat. Still no luck, just several more tries with the same lack of success. Then I launched Firefox 5, logged onto MSDN again, and hit the renewal button. This was only a minute our so after my previous attempt with IE9. With Firefox, everything went through without pause. No timeouts, no lags, just steady progress through the series of web pages and the final result that I was looking for. This morning I got a call from the credit-card issuer wanting to know why I had seven $1 charges to Microsoft plus one for the price of the VS renewal. I explained what I had done and he told me it was because Microsoft sends a $1 charge to the account to make sure it's legitimate, then later backs out that charge and revises it with the correct amount. When the request times out before completion the correction is never made. He said they would remove all of the $1 charges and approve the renewal charge. I'm not sure whether this is an IE9 issue or a website issue but it seems to me most likely that it results from some problem within IE9 since the website performed correctly with Firefox.
I have some additional information about this situation. As I thought, IE was timing out before the credit-card issuer was able to respond with a confirmation. The same thing has happened several times since then, including once as I was attempting to purchase tickets for a flight to South America. I prefer to use IE for such things because Adobe Acrobat has added a "Convert" toolbar button to IE9 so that I can get a PDF file as proof of payment (with Vista or Win7 you can no longer use the "print to PDF" option due to security issues). As far as I can determine, the convert button isn't offered with any other browser. Eventually I found a setting in the registry that affects the amount of time IE9 allows for responses. Here is the registry key:
HKEY_CurrentUser\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings
The value that controls the setting of interest is a REG_DWORD named "ReceiveTimeout". The default setting is 10000 ms, or 10 seconds. That's too short for most credit-card processing. By changing it to 120000 (equivalent to two minutes) I was able to overcome the problem. It's odd that Microsoft set this value so low, and even odder that you can only change it through the registry. I suspect that it will cause a lot of people to stop trying to use IE9 for online purchases.