Microsoft has confirmed issues with Windows Live Hotmail, revealing that the service cannot be accessed by a range of users who are confronted with various login problems. At the end of the past week, Softpedia started receiving reports from Firefox users that the open source browser was blocking Windows Live Hotmail Wave 3. However, in the notification provided by Microsoft there is no mention of Firefox whatsoever, and only an indication that Windows Live Hotmail itself is the source of the problems.
Firefox users
are reporting not being able to access Windows Live Hotmail or to use the email service under normal parameters with the open source browser following the implementation of the latest update for Wave 3. This is of course not the first time that Firefox fails to play nice with Windows Live Hotmail, however, it is the first time that the latest version of Windows Live Hotmail, namely Wave 3, has problems working properly in Firefox.
I played around with the default installation of Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 and found absolutely no issues accessing Windows Live Hotmail. In this context, neither Firefox nor a bug in Firefox is responsible for access to Windows Live Hotmail being lost, or the service running as it normally should. As was the case in the past, Firefox users have identified various add-ons for the browser as the source of the issues.
“After I updated I started having problems opening my mail. I was using firefox. and I also had the paypal plugin installed. Through trial and error I found out that the paypal plugin was causing the problems with the new update. Don't know if this helps any, just thought I would throw it out there,” writes a user identified as StarTrekker.
“WOT KILLING HOTMAIL. I'm also facing same issues. I don't have adblock addon installed and i can't find it in addon's list. I have WOT installed so let Microsoft know WOT is also killing it...” added Kausar; with Jacek saying that “Ok, I did check Hotmail on several PC running XP, 7, Ubuntu, SimplyMepis and old iMac with Safari and IE. Various browsers, various versions. I had problems with FF on XP only. I managed to solve the problem. Go to AdBlock Preferences (ctrl+shift+e) then Filters then Remove all custom filters. Restart browser. After that hotmail should be ok. I have it as before no stupid messages etc. Please note - disabling AdBlock did not help, reinstaling either. Uninstalling did but who wants to uninstall AdBlock?”
“Through my own trial and error fixing I have found it was not ad block plus at all, it was the firefox addon "No Script". Make sure to allow "MSN.com" "Hotmail.com" and "live.com". I have had no problems after allowing these in No Script,” explained Michael.
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Fact is that Windows Live Hotmail has had problems with the Adblock add-on, and we verified that the default installation of NoScript indeed handicaps the email service to the point of making it unusable. Users running Firefox are advised to disable all add-ons and to see whether they can access and use Windows Live Hotmail, or to use another browser to determine if Firefox is indeed the problem. If the service functions on Firefox with add-ons disabled or in an alternative browser, re-enable the add-ons one by one trying to access Windows Live Hotmail after each step in order to identify the specific item that is causing the problems. Solutions for making Firefox no longer block Windows Live Hotmail by tweaking Adblock and NoScript are presented above.
Still, Microsoft's acknowledgment of login problems for the email service, suggest that Firefox, or its add-ons might not be the cause. “Windows Live Hotmail is currently experiencing login issues. Some Customers may receive errors when attempting to login to their Live Hotmail account,” Microsoft
revealed.
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