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Sunday, August 10, 2008

Firefox 3 can't handle Silverlight 2, or is it the other way?

Yes, Silvelight 2 hasn't been released yet, and it's currently in Beta 2.

If you have Firefox 2 (at least 2.0.0.7), Silverlight 1 or 2 runs peacefully and quite the same with Silverlight 1/2 on IE. But on Firefox 3, Silverlight runs but does not run!

Why? This definitely happens to be a bug in Silverlight.js, the script that's needed to prepare <OBJECT> for your Silverlight app. The bug is called "race condition". Initially, Microsoft had announced that this bug is on Firefox  3, but this time they have admitted it's a bug in Silverlight.js via blog entry of Nigel Parker in MSDN:

Why is Silverlight 1 broken with Firefox 3 and how do I fix it?

Firefox 3 is about to be released. There is a launch party this Sunday in the US and next Thursday in Barcelona.

The original V1 Silverlight detection script Firefox 3 has a race condition that affects the way that <object is invoked, loaded and detected. This race condition in the script has always been there but didn't occur in previous versions of the Firefox browser which meant that it remained updetected until late in the FireFox 3 development cycle.

What this means is that the forthcoming Firefox 3 release will break some Silverlight 1.0 installation experiences on web sites that use the original Silverlight 1.0 SDK Silverlight.js detection file.

The Silverlight 2 SDK has an updated Silverlight.js file that not only solves this problem for all versions of Silverlight but also eliminates browser restart that was previously needed for new installs.

You can get the SDK as part of the Install Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008 or through the download center.

Silverlight Streaming will support hosting Silverlight 2 Beta 2 later this week.

Update: Silverlight Streaming now supports Silverlight 2 Beta 2

If you want to link to the Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Silverlight.js file hosted at Silverlight Streaming the one to use is http://agappdom.net/i/silverlight.js

In the mean time I have uploaded just the new Silverlight 2 Beta 2 Silverlight.js detection file to skydrive.

Update: Alternatively the new Silverlight.js file that works with FF3 & Silverlight 1 & Silverlight 2B2 is now at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/silverlightjs

Thumbs up for Microsoft! But, I think this updates needs to be synchronized in all sites, especially on Microsoft's heavy multimedia developer and it-pro community sites such as Channel 9, Channel 8, On10, TechEdge. And if you read the above 2nd paragraph, they had  blamed Firefox and they have quickly clarified it.

If you want to get the latest script updates, you can visit the MSDN Code on the above link.

Seeing that that blog entry was quite a long time, "Tuesday, June 17, 2008", when can I see my streaming video on these heavy Silverlight sites (including Channel 9) on Firefox 3, hey Microsoft?

I'm tired of seeing these "run but doesn't run" display:

silverlight_firefox3

What do you think, my dear blog reader?