Filed under: Internet Tools, Troubleshooting, MobileMe
Firefox 3 and MobileMe not working? It might be Ubiquity plugin
While this might not be news for everyone, reader Brad and I seemed to be having the same problem: Using Firefox 3, we would see the "unsupported browser" message pictured while trying to use me.com.
Obviously, Firefox 3 is a supported browser for MobileMe. A TUAW colleague gave it a try and found everything to work fine. Brad and I compared notes about what plugins we have in common, and found that Ubiquity was causing the problem.
It turned out to be related to the user-agent string: MobileMe uses the user-agent string to determine what browser you're using, and Ubiquity tacks on an extra bit at the end. For example, without Ubiquity installed, it shows Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120121 Firefox/3.0.5. With Ubiquity installed, it said Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120121 Firefox/3.0.5 Ubiquity/0.1.5. (Emphasis mine.)
Since MobileMe doesn't know what to do with the extra Ubiquity text at the end, it thinks you have an unsupported browser, and shows you that error.
The good news is that you can fix this, thanks to a simple technique from Tim Jarrett, and still use both Ubiquity and MobileMe. Read on to find out how.
Thanks, Brad!
In Firefox 3:
- In the address bar, type about:config
- Click "I'll be careful, I promise" to continue.
- In the filter box, type ubiquity.
- Find the item named general.useragent.extra.ubiquity and double-click it.
- When asked to enter a string value, just delete the contents of the text box and click OK.
- Close the about:config window.
Try going to me.com: hopefully you'll see the login area, instead of that pesky "unsupported browser" message. Success!
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dastranger said 3:22PM on 1-27-2009
Thanks you SO MUCH for this tip. I've been pullin' out my hair lately on this stupid bug and small annoyance. This fixed it!
Reply
balls said 3:25PM on 1-27-2009
Parsing Agent Strings can be a biznitch.
Reply
Eric said 4:26PM on 1-27-2009
This is somewhat annoying... web developers shouldn't be using the UserAgent string, they should be looking at the actual capabilities of the browsers instead. Ironically, I've recommended the same thing other times because of a site not working with Safari (the UA string changed from version 2.x to 3.0).
Reply
sheehanjacob said 5:52PM on 1-27-2009
I'd say both are in the wrong.
Ubiquity and other extensions or plugins or utilities should not be over-whelming browser agents with appended items using general.useragent.extra. It should be noted that Ubiquity has changed this method in newer preview builds available from Mozilla Labs so that should negate this particular problem but that's a pretty weak method of detecting browsers on Mobileme's part.
Reply
Michael said 7:57PM on 1-27-2009
I have the same problem with mobileme not allowing me in, but am not running ubiquity.
any other ideas?
Reply
Miguel Wickert said 1:11PM on 2-08-2009
Sweet Batman, thanks! I was wondering what the problem was with that. You guys have tons of useful material here... I'm a new mac user and this site has been extremely helpful. Thanks again, :)
-Mig
Reply