Yahoo Email Useragent Issue

[pshipwrite]

Today, in signing on to my Yahoo email account, I received the following message: "The latest version of Yahoo Mail is not supported on your browser. Please use a supported browser below or use basic Mail." The message displays buttons to download the Google Chrome and Firefox browsers or to continue with basic Mail. I was able to workaround/resolve this issue by updating Yahoo's useragent override by deleting the parenthetical Pale Moon on the end of the UA string. Now, the string simply ends with Firefox/99.9.

[banichi]

As of this afternoon (10/8/2020) I tried to access my Yahoo mail that I have had for about 15 years or so. I decided to pay for it, so I have the Pro version. I have been using PaleMoon for about 5+ years, I don't remember exactly how long, but today - on two different computers with Windows 7 Pro, I get a message that Yahoo no longer supports Pale Moon and I can either start using Firefox, or Chrome, or drop to the stupid version of Yahoo mail that does not allow me to scroll through many hundreds of emails, but only gives me a page at a time. As a professional, this is not tolerable. I started using Pale Moon because 1) Firefox did not have a 64-bit version, 2) I hate Chrome, and 3) I could use all the same bookmarks that I had from Firefox. I also have Waterfox, but use it for other applications. I just like Palemoon for the most part.

It is my impression that Yahoo, in conjunction with Firefox, has been trying to kill off Pale Moon. There has been other issues with Pale Moon, perhaps because you went off on your own and are no longer 100% compatible with Firefox. I don't know. The question is, can I run an older version of Pale Moon and get around this Yahoo issue?

[Dgwphotos]

Where is this setting hiding?

[MoonPower]

Just got a blurb from Yahoo Mail when I tried to log in:

"Your browser is no longer compatible with yahoo Mail..."

Or something like that. Yahoo directed me to use another browser such as Firefox, Chrome, IE, the usual culprits I'd rather not use. Is there going to be an update to Pale Moon that will make it work with Yahoo again? Or will I have to use another browser from now on? (I'd REALLY rather not do that.)

[AVATARVENUS]

I rec'd this same message at Yahoo but lacked the technical savvy to fix it.
Thanks for the info.
This does not mean that I actually know how to go about fixing it.

[Pallid Planetoid]

^ AVATARVENUS -- Enter "about:config" (w/out the quotes) in your browser address bar. Press enter for the next "dragon..." prompt you see. Then enter "override.yahoo" (w/out quotes) in the "Search bar" at the top which will get you the Preference setting you want to display (make sure it is the general.useragent.override.yahoo.com preference setting that you see displayed) then double-click on that line to get the string prompt for this preference setting and place your cursor in that setting and navigate using the right-arrow key to the end of the string value you see and remove the reference to "Pale Moon" so all you have is "Mozilla/5.0 (%OS_SLICE% rv:99.9) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/99.9" showing (w/out quotes) and click on the "OK" button to accept the change.

[AVATARVENUS]

^ AVATARVENUS -- Enter "about:config" (w/out the quotes) in your browser address bar. Press enter for the next "dragon..." prompt you see. Then enter "override.yahoo" (w/out quotes) in the "Search bar" at the top which will get you the Preference setting you want to display (make sure it is the general.useragent.override.yahoo.com preference setting that you see displayed) then double-click on that line to get the string prompt for this preference setting and place your cursor in that setting and navigate using the right-arrow key to the end of the string value you see and remove the reference to "Pale Moon" so all you have is "Mozilla/5.0 (%OS_SLICE% rv:99.9) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/99.9" showing (w/out quotes) and click on the "OK" button to accept the change.

Thank you very much, PP
You've set it out logically so that even I, a techno-idiot, can follow it.
I will attempt this fix tomorrow when I'm wide awake as my brain is way too feeble right now, as it's my bedtime.
I'll let you know if I manage to do it properly.

[Pallid Planetoid]

^ You're very welcome AVATARVENUS - I'll be watching for your reply tomorrow.

[Sessh]

I can verify that this works instantly.

[Dgwphotos]

Got it, thanks!

[Moonchild]

Thanks for the report. I'll make this change permanent (and add it to dynamic updates in the meantime)

[Lotusisrael]

This morning, this issue hit me as well. I pressed the option to use the basic Yahoo Mail, in order to read my mail. The one with less features, from years ago, that greated me when I sign in from Internet Explorer. You can communicat with Yahoo or other companies that do that and explain to them the situation so that they list Pale Moon as a supported, up to the date browser.

[AVATARVENUS]

^ You're very welcome AVATARVENUS - I'll be watching for your reply tomorrow.

Hi PP,
Sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday, it was a hectic day for me.
A strange thing happened when I logged into Yahoo mail in the morning. It had been restored without any action on my part. Imagine my surprise. Had Moonchild already made the change in Pale Moon? If so, I'm very grateful because I wasn't very confident in my geek skills, truth be told. What a relief! I'm so glad that I came in here to query it, and for your help.
Having insomnia now, hence my post at this hour.
Thank you again for your detailed explanation.

[Moonchild]

A strange thing happened when I logged into Yahoo mail in the morning. It had been restored without any action on my part.

That is the "magic" of dynamic user-agent updates at work that was instated for things that need quick action. Your browser has received a dynamic update (from a specific update server we operate) which "magically fixed" Yahoo mail overnight. Basically it allows to make site-specific overrides without having to release a new version of the browser. It will still be entered into the next version as a normal override, but in the interim web compatibility issues due to user-agents can be quickly addressed with no action needed from the user.

[AVATARVENUS]

Good morning, Moonchild,
It made me very happy to have that good magic.
Thank you.

[ron_1]

That is the "magic" of dynamic user-agent updates at work that was instated for things that need quick action. Your browser has received a dynamic update (from a specific update server we operate) which "magically fixed" Yahoo mail overnight.

I still have not received this update. I don't need it as I'm still on Yahoo's basic email (and it's only a secondary account anyway), but I'm wondering if there is any problem on my end stopping this update from reaching me.

[Moonchild]

The updates happen in the background and don't have a visible result in the browser (unless you inspect headers in devtools). I believe I already mentioned this before.

[Pallid Planetoid]

I still have not received this update. I don't need it as I'm still on Yahoo's basic email (and it's only a secondary account anyway), but I'm wondering if there is any problem on my end stopping this update from reaching me.

Your Yahoo Useragent Override pref (in about:config) should reflect the change however.

[ron_1]

Your Yahoo Useragent Override pref (in about:config) should reflect the change however.

I know that. That's what I've been checking since yesterday. I still have the (Pale Moon) part in the override, so the update for whatever reason hasn't reached me.

[vannilla]

I still have not received this update. I don't need it as I'm still on Yahoo's basic email (and it's only a secondary account anyway), but I'm wondering if there is any problem on my end stopping this update from reaching me.

Try resetting the value to the default. Go to about:config or use Sasuga to reset it.