German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working. Topic is solved

For support with specific websites

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Please always mention the name/domain of the website in question in your topic title.
Please one website per topic thread (to help keep things organized). While behavior on different sites might at first glance seem similar, they are not necessarily caused by the same.

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Lothar Weber
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German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by Lothar Weber » 2022-08-01, 13:25

https://www.elster.de/eportal/login/softpse

Site is showing up but klicking the button to look for a saved certificate on own pc, which is necessary to log in does not show any reaction.

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Moonchild
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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2022-08-01, 13:41

Thanks for ignoring the instructions about providing requested information.

One error:

Code: Select all

Timestamp: 01/08/2022 15:34:35
Error: SyntaxError: '[data-forward-enter-to]:not(div, form)' is not a valid selector
Source File: https://www.elster.de/eportal/scripts/app.js?v=f084710b83f5693ce5fa71aac99ac52b
Line: 1
Also, the button itself is a regular button with no event handler attached, so it's no surprise clicking it does nothing.

It's unclear to me why they are trying to reinvent standard form controls for file selection. Clearly what they are trying to use isn't very accessible.
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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by Quorx » 2022-08-05, 10:43

It's unclear to me why they are trying to reinvent standard form controls for file selection. Clearly what they are trying to use isn't very accessible.
If you are of the opinion that web standards are going down the drain (due to Chrome's dominance and "mobile first"), we agree. - But that shouldn't be the users' problem. The Elster tax portal is not some dilettante website that can be dismissed as irrelevant.

The problem is: There are now so many sites with similar buttons etc. which do not work with PaleMoon (or better: with which PaleMoon does not work while other browsers do).
So browsing with PaleMoon meanwhile means the need to always have an alternative browser at hand.

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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by vannilla » 2022-08-05, 12:27

Quorx wrote:
2022-08-05, 10:43
But that shouldn't be the users' problem.
It actually is.
Quoting from your post:
Quorx wrote:
2022-08-05, 10:43
So browsing with PaleMoon meanwhile means the need to always have an alternative browser at hand.
Not being able to use their tool of choice is 100% the users' problem.

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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by Quorx » 2022-08-05, 15:21

:thumbdown: With that attidue PaleMoon will be no longer the tool of choice soon...
No offense, just fact.

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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2022-08-05, 15:32

Quorx wrote:
2022-08-05, 10:43
The Elster tax portal is not some dilettante website that can be dismissed as irrelevant.
...
With that attidue PaleMoon will be no longer the tool of choice soon...
No offense, just fact.
With that attitude, websites will determine for you what software you can use. That is entirely your problem.
No offense, just fact.

Back on-topic: I analyzed the problem and it's clearly some form of interop issue the webmaster should be able to solve, either by using standard form controls instead of trying to reinvent the wheel with a generic "button" instead of the correct input method, or by fixing whatever they are doing in scripting that doesn't error to add the proper event to the proper button control. If people would actually take the steps to inform them, that can move forward to a solution, if they are actually willing to provide service to a broad audience and not subject to "But you must be using a non-private browser". And that is something users of their services would be the right person(s) for.
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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by andyprough » 2022-08-05, 17:37

Quorx wrote:
2022-08-05, 15:21
With that attidue...
Nice job hijacking someone else's support thread so you could soapbox your personal rant a little bit. We're all proud of you. :coffee:

.....................

Reading through the elster forum, this problem has been brought up over the years and has been reported with Firefox, Chromium, Edge, possibly some other browsers. My German's not so great. The solution offered each time from what I can read is "try a different browser" ("ein alternativer Browser") until you find one that works.

Hope this is helpful to the OP, Lothar Weber, who in fairness to him should be pointed out is not the same as the soapbox-ranting person.

EDIT: I figured out the problem - as Moonchild said, the button doesn't really point to anything. The thing you need to click on with your mouse is the small "Zertifikatsdatei" word - see the picture below, with the word outlined in red. That's what is actually linked, and will open a file upload box on Pale Moon for you.
2022-08-05_13-03.png
Last edited by andyprough on 2022-08-05, 20:13, edited 1 time in total.

Quorx
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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by Quorx » 2022-08-05, 18:59

Off-topic:
Yeah! I can see by the sour tone of the responses that I hit the mark. I apologize as a long-time user for daring to call a spade a spade - no matter what you may call this (and me) because of it.
"hijacking someone else's support thread" - how absurd! What the questioner was answered here can't be called "support" at all: It was an ungracious answer, which turns the fact that the page is displayed incorrectly in Palemoon as a mistake of the web designers. When I imagine a newcomer to the forum being fobbed off with answers like that, I feel ashamed for you guys.
The fact is: other browsers can display the page correctly and the button (or the text inside it) is linked. How Palemoon manages to make the link appear elsewhere - that should interest the developers! Possibly Palemoon misunderstands a misunderstandable script. This should be taken as an opportunity to work on Palemoon's error tolerance.
Don't think of error reports as ranting, but as a contribution to improvement. It is up to you whether you make something out of it. Otherwise the pages that report "The browser you use is outdated." are really right.

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Lothar Weber
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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by Lothar Weber » 2022-08-05, 20:05

Thank you quorx and andyprough. Clicking on the outlined word as shown above really does the job.
Some answers given here do remember me at a time where users in this forum were named as "morons". Is this time coming back?

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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by Moonchild » 2022-08-05, 20:37

Lothar Weber wrote:
2022-08-05, 20:05
Some answers given here do remember me at a time where users in this forum were named as "morons". Is this time coming back?
Thanks for reminding me to not engage and just apply administrative action.
Warning number 2 for the same thing issued.

Glad to know it was solved by clicking the word - counter intuitive to say the least, but eh!
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Re: German Tax-Site "Elster": Login not working.

Unread post by athenian200 » 2022-08-05, 23:38

Quorx wrote:
2022-08-05, 18:59
Yeah! I can see by the sour tone of the responses that I hit the mark. I apologize as a long-time user for daring to call a spade a spade - no matter what you may call this (and me) because of it.
People are not upset with you for "telling it like it is," there is nothing wrong with simply pointing out that the web page works in Chromium or Firefox, that is an observable fact and one people can see for themselves and come to their own conclusions about. That's never been a problem. What upsets people is your tone.
"hijacking someone else's support thread" - how absurd! What the questioner was answered here can't be called "support" at all: It was an ungracious answer, which turns the fact that the page is displayed incorrectly in Palemoon as a mistake of the web designers. When I imagine a newcomer to the forum being fobbed off with answers like that, I feel ashamed for you guys.
I can't imagine what you must think of us, but it cannot be very positive. We do not put pressure on people to use Pale Moon exclusively, and never claimed it could meet the needs of every user in every situation. The use of those other browsers is a choice that is simply not relevant here, because it's off-topic.

You think the browser could be improved? Well, this is an open-source project, and I don't see you cracking open a C++ book to help out or anything. I wish you would put this kind of energy into helping us out instead of criticizing, maybe go find some programmers and try to convince them to contribute code, just do... something constructive, because this isn't. You know what I mean?
The fact is: other browsers can display the page correctly and the button (or the text inside it) is linked. How Palemoon manages to make the link appear elsewhere - that should interest the developers! Possibly Palemoon misunderstands a misunderstandable script. This should be taken as an opportunity to work on Palemoon's error tolerance.
And it does interest us (though talking about improving the browser engine in a support thread is a bit off-topic). The thing is, this isn't an either/or situation. We try to improve our browser engine, and in the meantime we would prefer that web developers take interoperability into account like they do for other browsers rather than just letting their site break on our browser. Firefox can't keep up with Chromium either, the difference is that because they have 5% marketshare or something, they get websites targeting what they do support rather than just letting things break for Firefox users. The same was true of Internet Explorer back in the day. Websites supported it because it was in use. They could accommodate Pale Moon too, so yes at least some of the blame does fall on web developers for not being concerned about interoperability and often only testing the most popular browsers.
Don't think of error reports as ranting, but as a contribution to improvement. It is up to you whether you make something out of it. Otherwise the pages that report "The browser you use is outdated." are really right.
Error reports aren't ranting. Simply reporting that something doesn't work in our browser and then describing how it should work as tested in another browser is fine. But suggesting that we are placing an unfair burden on users and web developers and have done something wrong, if we can't implement everything supported by other browsers within a certain timeframe, is definitely crossing a line into an unhelpful attack on people's character.
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