Firefox Compatibility Problem with MAC

[ellenjones6]

I am redesigning my site, moving from an architecture using tables to one using CSS. I have been testing it on various browsers and have run into a problem with Firefox with MAC. The page works fine on Windows Firefox (various versions), according to my own (Windows) computers, to http://browsershots.org, and to Adobe BrowserLab.

However, when I test the page with Firefox on a MAC, I get contradictory results. Because I don't have a MAC, I used browsershots.org to test how the page looks on a MAC. It works fine, according to this test, on a MAC using Firefox 15. However, when I run the page on Adobe BrowserLab, it shows me a rendering for Firefox 11 OSX in which the left navigation panel does not appear. I don't know whether this is an actual problem with Firefox 11 on a MAC or a flaw in Adobe BrowserLab. (Ironically, the old site, based on tables, seems to work just fine!)

In any event, I do not know what to do about it. Are there other ways to determine how the page works with Firefox on a MAC, other than buying a MAC (not an option for me at this time)? If you are a MAC user, can you tell me whether the page works on your browsers? If this is a valid problem with Firefox on a MAC, are there ways I can tinker with the page to make it work on a MAC? If this is a valid problem with Firefox on a MAC, is it crucial that I fix it or are there so few MAC users who use Firefox that I can safely ignore it?

What to do?

The URL of the page: http://adirondackvic.org/Woods-and-Waters-Trail.html

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much. Ellen

[jscheuer1]

Ask some MAC users. It might be hard to find any with that exact configuration though. Firefox is pretty aggressive in its campaign to maintain its installations as up to date. Only folks who specifically hold their versions back for testing purposes are likely to have that sort of setup. Which leads me to another thought on this - it might not be worth worrying about because of that very fact. MAC users are in the minority to begin with. MAC users using outdated Firefox as their primary browser are even rarer.

I've seen this sort of issue on the PC platform - older Firefox not working with a specific feature or bit of code. In my experience it requires access to that configuration or one like it in order to fix it. Simulators may or may not be adequate in diagnosing the problem, which might as you point out not exist in the real configuration it's supposed to be simulating. Javascript is often harder to simulate than ordinary markup.

[ellenjones6]

As it turns out, I am now unable to replicate the incorrect rendering with Adobe BrowserLab. I just tried it multiple times on several different computers and the page is now rendering correctly with Firefox 11 OSX, as well as with the other browsers. I have no clue as to why that left nav bar was missing in Firefox 11 OSX when I tried it (repeatedly!) early this morning, but it seems to have been a temporary bug in BrowserLab, not a real problem with the page. I would still be interested in hearing from MAC users as to how the page renders on a real-life set-up vice a simulator.

Thanks for the quick response and the (as always) good advice! ellen

[djr33]

It was fine for me. I'm one of those rare Firefox on OSX users :)

I did notice one problem, though, and it might explain what was going on with the browser tests. The page took a little time to load (maybe 3-5 seconds) during which several elements appeared at various times, and then finally everything was there. The last part to load were the navigation links on the left. At first there were just some gray lines on the side for a while, then individually the links started to pop up. This screen capture was taken in the middle of that, after only one link had popped up.
I replicated this by reloading the page a couple times-- clearing the cache and reloading, that is. It will probably do this consistently for many users (maybe some on a PC too?), but once the content has loaded on one page it shouldn't take too long on the other pages-- it's probably a one time annoyance for users, and not that bad anyway.
But again, this is just during loading. After everything loaded, the page looked fine.
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My guess is that some of those computers might have taken screen captures before the page was fully loaded.

[jscheuer1]

It was fine for me. I'm one of those rare Firefox on OSX users :)

Rare enough though? I stipulated OSX running Firefox 11 or (if you stretch my meaning) any other out of date version of Firefox. :)

Oh, and it does that too on Firefox 15, loads a little slow - that's a common problem with Firefox on any platform.

[djr33]

Oh, I wasn't arguing-- many/most Mac users either stay with Safari or have now moved on to Chrome. Firefox used to be pretty popular as an alternative to Safari. At most, I'd say about 1/3 of mac users use FF at this point, maybe a little less. And I should have added I'm using FF 15.

[Brownmarsh12]

It's PPC, which Apple's Tech Support just told me is the problem.

I've been a loyal FF user for several years, and FF 3.6 works fine with this hardware. It's going to be very disappointing if I have to give up on FF because Mozilla quits supporting FF 3.6 and I am prevented from using FF 4.0!! Especially after just upgrading the OS from 10.4 to 10.5!

Is there any chance that Mozilla might fix this incompatibility in a future update? There should be many other FF users in the same situation, as my iMac is only 5 years old.

Thanks

[djr33]

That's a weird situation because of what Mozilla decided to do with the versions. I really don't understand it.

I used FF up to version 4 happily. Then one day (it seems) it jumped to version 5, then 6, 7, etc. Over the past year (literally about 12 months, I believe), FF has gone from 4 through 15, where I am now. I won't be surprised if next week they release version 16.

I believe this has something to do with a marketing campaign to make it sound better than "IE 10". But it just annoys me.

In reality, we're really on version 4.5 or something like that, maybe v5 at most. But they're just numbering it in a nonsensical way.


That said... my impression is that FF3 is now considered so old (even though in reality it's not that old) that it is just the past; and I don't see why they'd now go back and make it compatible with older Macs (PPC). I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice, but I don't think it's likely. Just my personal opinion.

And despite the prohibitive cost of updating your mac (I know what that's like!), "just 5 years old" for a computer is sort of like saying "just 80 years old" for a person-- that's pretty old, and it's had a long life. You won't have problems only with FF, but with most new software at this point, I think. PPC isn't really supported any more. You can certainly get a couple more years out of it, but at some point you may find it worth upgrading.

Aside from just the PPC issue, there's also the fact that you won't be able to keep updating your OS. They're already on OSX 10.7 now (I'm "still" on 10.6, and I bought this about a year ago only).

I've got an old mac as well, with OSX 10.3 (or 10.2?) and basically nothing new works on that at all. I don't use it for anything in particular at this point, but basically once you're about 5 versions behind, the computer isn't very useful.