Silverlight Mesh apps not working on Mac?

Question

Hi
 
I created a simple Mesh application with Silverlight and uploaded to my dev. Mesh desktop.

On Windows it works fine both on devices in the Mesh, and on computers without Mesh installed when run in the browser.

On the Mac the Silverlight app does not run. On Safari it opens as a blank white area. On FireFox it prompts me to open or save an HTML file, and does not run whichever I choose.

I presume this should work on the Mac, when run in the browser? Any suggestions, or is this a known issue?

Tim

Answer 1

Tim,

Can you verify if on the other device (Mac) the silverlight runtime is present? Silverlight povides a plug-in for the browsers and it can be downloaded from the following URL:

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx

The blank white area is potentially indicating lack of plug-in. You may have to go to browser's tool options to ensure plug-in is used by the browsers.


We have been reported by developers about certain UI/cosmetic issues on the other browsers. These bugs are pipelined to be fixed in the future QFEs.

Yes, you can run MEWA on Mac using browser. BTW, there is no local LOE runtime for Macs yet (so no offline ability via desktop app).

Many thanks,

Rajan

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Answer 2

Rajan Dwivedi said:

Tim,

Can you verify if on the other device (Mac) the silverlight runtime is present?

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Rajan

Yes, Silverlight 2.0 is installed and works in both Safari and Firefox. I reinstalled it just to be sure.

It is only the Mesh app that does not run. I am navigating to the developer preview mesh site and trying to run the app from the Mesh browser desktop.

I get a solid white area if that is any help!

Tim

Answer 3

Can you run other silverlight videos example from silverlight.net on Mac and other browsers on this machine? What about other apps that are available on Developer Sandbox under Applications (like Crossword etc.). I am trying to see if your problem is app specific or is happening to apps offered by Mesh Pack.

Also, sometimes loading of silverlight MEWA takes time (more than normally). Most of the time it sounds like stuck at 99%.

If problem persists then please share simple app (send mail at meshctpe [.at.] microsoft dot com) that can be reproduced in our labs. I can escalate it to our test team. Meanwhile let me get some pointers from dev.

Regards,

Rajan

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Answer 4

Tim,

I confirm it from the core team. With quite aggressive timeline for PDC release with the current level of resources and CTP goals, we could only test XP SP3/Vista SP1 and IE7. We will eventually support Mac and Safari but this is not an immediate priority in the near future for CTP QFEs.

We apologize but due to key internal constraints, the solution in place for running sandboxed apps on the web desktop does not work for Safari - independent of whether your app is HTML/Silverlight/Flash. Firefox 3, however, should work. The prompt indicates that the content-type of the file was not properly set during upload. Was the app uploaded via the developer portal or is it being run through Visual Studio?

Hope this helps,

Rajan

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Answer 5

 

Rajan Dwivedi said:

Tim,

Firefox 3, however, should work. The prompt indicates that the content-type of the file was not properly set during upload. Was the app uploaded via the developer portal or is it being run through Visual Studio?

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Thanks for letting me know. The app was uploaded using first the developer portal, then on subsequent builds Visual Studio.

Tim

Answer 6

I verified with Dev.

The Live Framework Tools for VS plugin is not setting the content-type correctly on files uploaded to the debug application resource feed.  This doesn’t seem to affect execution of the mesh app in IE, but does impact other browser configurations such as Firefox.

The workaround is to upload the .zip file generated by the VS build through the Azure dev portal.

Step 1: Compile project.
Step 2: Go to bin folder and Zip file should be there
Step 3: Upload Manually to Azure Developer Portal
Step 4: Test it on Live Desktop first using IE/firefox
Step 5: Check it on local desktop using firefox/IE

Please let us know if this does not work.

Rajan

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Answer 7

Thanks. Right now I get:

Last deployment failed, please try again.
Error message: There was a problem processing your request.

Maybe a system problem, or a problem with my account?

Tim

Answer 8

I was working on a demo for tomorrow's meeting 30 mins back and it sounds like service is unavailable due to operations as I tried few times and got similar errors.

It has to be tried later. Thanks for bearing with CTP/Tech Preview cloud (esp. Azure Developer Portal here.)

Regards,

rajan

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Answer 9

Rajan Dwivedi said:

The Live Framework Tools for VS plugin is not setting the content-type correctly on files uploaded to the debug application resource feed.  This doesn’t seem to affect execution of the mesh app in IE, but does impact other browser configurations such as Firefox.

This bug should be fixed with January 2009 CTP for Live Framework Tools.  Details:
http://blogs.msdn.com/liveframework/archive/2009/02/02/live-framework-tools-january-ctp.aspx
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/liveframework/thread/31ed7183-016a-4245-9503-074f572dc77d/ 

let us know how it goes?

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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.