Compatibility Mode view invoked for Boards.

Czarcasm

Hardware: Dell Dimension 4550, Pentium 4 2GHz, 512MB RAM

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3

Browser Version: Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702

Issue:

Since approx 11:00 this morning, Compatibility View is kicking in on Boards only when a page is loading.

Steps taken so far:

Cleared cache and cookies using Ccleaner V4.00.64

Restarted computer

I can manually force compatibility mode off.

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I'm heading out of the office now in a minute so won't be able to reset IE till the morning. I'm not sure what to make of the behaviour tbh, all other sites seem to be working fine. It's just Boards is causing the issue to present itself.

I have attached a screenshot-


Compatibility_Mode_Bug.PNG

Czarcasm

This is a report from boards.ie/diagnostics

Diagnostics Page


Your System

IP Address:

Operating System: Windows XP (SP3)

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; GTB7.4; chromeframe/26.0.1410.64; .NET4.0C; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Your Browser

Javascript Enabled: Yes
Cookies Enabled: Yes
Java Enabled: Yes
Flash Version: 11.7 700 installed
Your Resolution

Screen: 1024 x 768
Current Browser: 1003 x 628
Colour: 32 bit
Our Server

Date/Time: Friday 03rd of May 2013, 12:30:00
Name: www.boards.ie (lips)


=====================================================

And attached is a new screenshot with the message that I need to upgrade my browser. Unfortunately Windows XP will not accomodate IE9.


Compatibility_Mode_Bug_2.PNG

Boards.ie: Danny

So your IE8 browser is reporting itself as IE7; that's the issue and why you're getting the notice about upgrading your browser - it believes you're on IE7 which isn't supported anymore.

We send a header telling your browser to emulate IE9, it should fall back to IE8 (default) when it can't emulate IE9.

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE9" />

We've not changed anything on our side for the main site in a while, so I suspect this is a problem specific to your own machine. See this page about steps you can take to disable compatibility view.

Danny

Czarcasm

Thanks Danny,

I completely missed the MSIE 7.0 string, I was going to say I'd jig the registry to change the browser identifier string (I haven't done that since the days when eircom used provide dial-up install cds with "Internet Explorer 4.0 provided by eircom" in the title bar, used annoy me something fierce!), but then a quick google threw up this little gem-

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/18450/change-the-user-agent-string-in-internet-explorer-8/

and as you can see, even in the screen caps there, IE8 is identifying as IE7 in the user agent string, the same as mine, but the website useragentstring,com is able to see it as IE8!

I won't be back in the office again till Tuesday but at least now I know it's an easy fix on my end.

You could probably close this one off so Danny, cheers for pointing me in the right direction anyway