note to self....
Friday, May 13, 2005
NetworkSolutions Consumer Insight
"NetworkSolutions Consumer Insight" is the text of the "stealth" popup that the Network Solutions account management pages opens when you log in to your account there to manage domains you have registered there.
While that may seem unremarkable, what we have found over the course of the last week is that, when trying to manage these Network Solutions registered accounts, any changes made will silently fail unless your trusty Firefox browser has enabled all of a) allow popups for networksolutions.com, b) allow cookies for networksolutions.com, and c) enable Javascript.
Furthermore, if popups are disabled and/or cookies are not allowed for the site, no errors are returned from Network Solutions servers - that is, any changes you request (e.g. to the DNS records) will fail without telling the use why the changes are not accepted. In fact, no indication is given that the changes were not accepted except for the fact that e.g. the DNS changes are not shown and are never propagated.
Network Solutions tech support did not inform us of what the problem was, even when explicitly asked. We specifically asked the rep if not having cookies enabled could be causing this problem, and the rep didn't think so. Nor was any mention made of the stealth popup or Javascript.
After about 20 minutes on the phone with Network Solutions tech support - which ended with them telling us "the problem is on your side" - we decided to try a few things, which is how we discovered this problem.
It is our considered opinion that Network Solutions should make clear in their documentation that Javascript, Cookies, and Popups are all required by the Network Solutions Account Manager pages. Also, it might be nice if an error of some kind - perhaps even a specific error, say "YOU NEED TO ENABLE COOKIES TO USE THIS SITE" - would be a good idea.
Finally, there is a bit of actual weirdness involved here, in that the cookie for networksolutions.com does not show up in our cookie list. The Javascript source code shows that at least one cookie is being set, but it doesn't show up.
While that may seem unremarkable, what we have found over the course of the last week is that, when trying to manage these Network Solutions registered accounts, any changes made will silently fail unless your trusty Firefox browser has enabled all of a) allow popups for networksolutions.com, b) allow cookies for networksolutions.com, and c) enable Javascript.
Furthermore, if popups are disabled and/or cookies are not allowed for the site, no errors are returned from Network Solutions servers - that is, any changes you request (e.g. to the DNS records) will fail without telling the use why the changes are not accepted. In fact, no indication is given that the changes were not accepted except for the fact that e.g. the DNS changes are not shown and are never propagated.
Network Solutions tech support did not inform us of what the problem was, even when explicitly asked. We specifically asked the rep if not having cookies enabled could be causing this problem, and the rep didn't think so. Nor was any mention made of the stealth popup or Javascript.
After about 20 minutes on the phone with Network Solutions tech support - which ended with them telling us "the problem is on your side" - we decided to try a few things, which is how we discovered this problem.
It is our considered opinion that Network Solutions should make clear in their documentation that Javascript, Cookies, and Popups are all required by the Network Solutions Account Manager pages. Also, it might be nice if an error of some kind - perhaps even a specific error, say "YOU NEED TO ENABLE COOKIES TO USE THIS SITE" - would be a good idea.
Finally, there is a bit of actual weirdness involved here, in that the cookie for networksolutions.com does not show up in our cookie list. The Javascript source code shows that at least one cookie is being set, but it doesn't show up.
Labels: link
posted by 0x0000 #
04:42
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