Plug-in Woes

I think this was being worked on a few weeks ago, but I'm still having problems with it, so maybe others are too...

About half of the SL pages I can't get to on my Linux system because I don't have the right version of Flash (or something to that effect). The results is that the browser seems to go into a loop, loading the same page over and over again without ever displaying anything.

I decided to take a look at the source code for a few of these cases, and as far as I can tell it is always the same file:

/account/login.php

At the top of this script is a section that looks like this:

// #############################################
// these are the user defined globals
// modify the following variables to customize the inspection behaviour

var requiredVersion = 5;			// version the user needs to view site (max is 5, min is 2)
var useRedirect = true; 			// "true" loads new flash or non-flash page into browser
									// "false" embeds movie or alternate html code into current page

// set next three vars if useRedirect is true...
var flashPage = "/flash.php?flash=yes&nextpage=/account/login.php"  // the location of the flash movie page
var noFlashPage = "/flash.php?flash=no&nextpage=/account/login.php" // send user here if they don't have the plugin or we can't detect it
var upgradePage = "/flash.php?flash=no&nextpage=/account/login.php" // send user here if we detect an old plugin
// #############################################

Followed by a bunch of logic designed to determin whether to jump next to the page labled "flashpage", "noFlashpage" or "upgradepage".

I'm not sure I see the point, unless this is all just placeholder code, but in any event having the page re-load itself is really counterproductive under any circumstance that I can think of.

Another thing...maybe related, maybe not, is that on another machine that doesn't have THIS problem and where all of the pages seem to render OK, I am often asked to login multiple times. I haven't been able to figure out any pattern to this. I can get directly into the forums fine, and my names shows up on the page so it has "remembered" me from before, but going to several of the other pages will result in a new login prompt. Seems like the same cookie would take care of all of these, but maybe multiple layers of security are involved.

PS: These all work great!...

http://www.homestarrunner.com/

Hiya Mac,

Do you have cookies enabled? We do use cookies to set the appropriate navigation, Flash or DHTML, and the file you found is our flash detection script. I believe the looping that you experience is caused by a browser with cookies disabled. I've added a check to ensure the cookie was successfully accepted, so you should no longer get stuck in that loop.

The multiple logins is an entirely different issue; one that I think drives everyone crazy. A fix for that is underway and should be deployed in the coming weeks.

-jim

Got them enabled and (as far as I know) at the default setting. I noticed there are high, medium and low privacy settings for cookies in Mozilla (never messed with them) and I'm set to "medium" whatever that means. I'll try setting that to the setting that allows everything and see if it makes a difference.

I've had the problem with multiple password prompts mainly on my iBook using Safari browser. On the Linux machine (Mozilla) the same screens that I would get a second password prompt I think are the ones that are looping... so the two things are maybe related somehow.

I'll do some more experiments and post back. Wouldn't it be better if that script pointed to a separate error file though? Even if this problem can't be resolved right away I'd rather have a definite "no way" error message than to have both my machine and the server in a loop.

Oooooh!

I set cookies to "allow all" and now I get this page, which I've never seen before:

http://secondlife.com/site/cookie.html

Is that something new?

Anyway, the advice that it gives for setting cookies in Netscape 7 match the way my settings were in the first place for Mozilla. Now putting them back the way it was I still get the cookies warning page. (At least it doesn't loop!)

Well, now that I can't see that code any more, is there a difference in there in how it would test for Netscape vs Mozilla?

In the past I have used both browsers under Linux, but lately I've settled on Mozilla since they added the tabbed browsing before Netscape (or something like that).

Would it help out if I installed the new Netscape and see if it works any better for me?

My guess is that MOST Linux users are going to be using Mozilla, but I could be wrong about that, I don't recall ever seeing any statistics.

I imagine you know this, but the Netscape 7 browser is based on Mozilla 1.0 (I think I got that right), so internally the differences between the two should be fairly small. Also, AOL has reduced support for Netscape (layed people off etc.) so at this point it's not clear how well it will be supported or what effect those changes will have on Mozilla.

Hey Mac,

Just so you know, I use Mozilla 1.3.1 from Linux almost exclusively, and I complain to Jim if it doesn't work for me. I've got FlashPlayer 6.0 r61 installed.

You might want to double check that you haven't explicitely refused all cookies from secondlife.com/forums.secondlife.com.

M

I'm starting to suspect you may be running an older version of the flash plug-in. Most of our flash movies are generated for flash version 5. Would you give it a try one more time and see if you hit a new page that prompts you to upgrade your flash plug-in.

-jim

Well thats good to know!
Here are the cookies I have (had):

From forums.secondlife.com:
Apache
bblastvisit
bbuserid
bbpassword
sessionhash
bbthreadview

From secondlife.com: (several of these)
FLASH-ENABLED
Information: Y
Host: secondlife.com
Path: /flash.php?flash-yes&nextpage=
Serrver Secure: no
Expires: 09.18.03 19:04:52

I've heard of cookies getting mangled. So I cleared all of mine and went out and back in... no change.

BUT.... I'm only using Mozilla 1.0...and I'm not sure what version of flash I have. I can't remember why I am at 1.0....probably becuas it matches up with the distro I'm using: Debian/woody/stable

Ooops....storm here and the lights just went out.

I'll type more when they come back.....good thing I've got UPS!

As I was about to say...

I'll keep my 1.0 as a control and see if I can install a more recent Mozilla as well as a Netscape 7.1

For now...I'm catching the rest of http://thelinuxshow.com

Netscape 7.1 seems to work fine

I can switch to this if I don't get the newer Mozilla to work.

-----
later
-----

Mozilla 1.4 works too.

So, I guess the question is, at what point going backward in the Mozilla Liniage does it break. Hopefully there are not a lot of folks using 1.0. Since it is installed by default with Debian/Woody I was going to wait and let the normal update process (which is EXTREEMLY conservative) deal with it. Now I'll just install the newer version in a local directory.

Sorry for the trouble. Thanks for fixing that loop. Let me know if there are any other scenarios (sp?) you want tested.

We use Debian here also. The release schedule is... painful, sometimes. I usually end up backporting stuff (like Mozilla... just been too busy to backport 1.4 since 1.3.1 has been working great for me). I've also found that Adrian Bunk's backports are of high quality, and are a good place to look for some newer versions of software that are packaged for woody.

Ah, well. Glad to hear that upgrading fixes your problem.