I have a problem that I have a hard time getting to grips with. This is going to be a bit long-winded i fear. Partly because english is not my native language and partly because I simply have *no* idea what the problem is, just that there acctually is one.
I am a programmer of bussiness applications and my company has a program that lets our clients view/alter/attest invoices. It is a part of a larger bussiness application suite with an html gui working against a Progress database and it is all running on the cilents server.
This application suite has been running for a number of years for other clients all of which have been using IE to run it, but we have recently gotten a few clients that want to run it through Safari on their Macbooks and for some reason the program that handles invoices seems to "stall".
The program usually opens up the base-gui and then runs a calculation frame (works sort of like a ajax call, only a bit older/simpler inhouse version) that collects the data from the database and then inserts data in the various iframes, displaying tables, enabeling buttons, that sort of thing. As far as I can tell from the screenshots that our client has sent us the basic layout opens up, but then nothing else happens. No tables get displayed and no buttons gets enabled, so it seems that the calculation frame is not running for some reason or other. This problem however only occurs on this and one other users computers that i am aware of.
I have confirmed that the program in itself is written according to standard and it runs just fine through Firefox and Safari on both PC and Mac when I have tested it on a couple of different locations. We have ofc tested it in our own enviroments and also by logging in to our problem-experiencing-clients own account and installation through both Safari (3.2.1) and Firefox (3.0.4) on both PC's and Macs opening up the exact same programs with exactly the same invoices and we never encounter any problems whatsoever. All the tests that we have done leads me to conclude that the acctual programming of the application is solid and that the trouble must be with the clients own setup seeing as how it only ever seems to occur there.
The problem is ofc that I don't know my hand from my elbow when it comes to Mac and Safari and as such I don't have any idea *how* to troubleshoot it or where the problem might occur. It could be anything from her internet connection/firewall/browser setup/internet options or whatever as far as I know.
Unfortunately the Client is quite a far away, so it is quite difficult for me to check her setup first hand and she is not very computer literate so it is also difficult to get much useful information out of her.
What I know about about her setup so far is this:
- She is using a Macbook Air that she bought last spring (2008) and it is her own personal computer.
- She updated the Safari installation at her local apple store a week ago.
- She has tried installing Firefox and got the same problem there.
- She was unable to find a version of IE that works with her OSX so she has been unable to test it with that browser.
- She says that her internet connection is "wireless broadband" and she hasn't really said anything more about it than that (I doubt she knows or cares about the specifics about such things unfortunately).
- As far as firewalls go I have no idea what she is using, but I doubt very much that she would use anything that wasn't pre-installed on the box when she got it.
I have searched around on the web for similar problems and I found quite a few instances where people seem to have had problems with getting Safari to load some web-pages correctly. Unfortunately I have found no comprihensive answers as to the cause of said problems.
Does anyone have any idea what might cause this problem or how to troubleshoot it? Any idea on how I could test/recreate this problem on my side? Anything I could ask her to do or check on her side?
I am a programmer of bussiness applications and my company has a program that lets our clients view/alter/attest invoices. It is a part of a larger bussiness application suite with an html gui working against a Progress database and it is all running on the cilents server.
This application suite has been running for a number of years for other clients all of which have been using IE to run it, but we have recently gotten a few clients that want to run it through Safari on their Macbooks and for some reason the program that handles invoices seems to "stall".
The program usually opens up the base-gui and then runs a calculation frame (works sort of like a ajax call, only a bit older/simpler inhouse version) that collects the data from the database and then inserts data in the various iframes, displaying tables, enabeling buttons, that sort of thing. As far as I can tell from the screenshots that our client has sent us the basic layout opens up, but then nothing else happens. No tables get displayed and no buttons gets enabled, so it seems that the calculation frame is not running for some reason or other. This problem however only occurs on this and one other users computers that i am aware of.
I have confirmed that the program in itself is written according to standard and it runs just fine through Firefox and Safari on both PC and Mac when I have tested it on a couple of different locations. We have ofc tested it in our own enviroments and also by logging in to our problem-experiencing-clients own account and installation through both Safari (3.2.1) and Firefox (3.0.4) on both PC's and Macs opening up the exact same programs with exactly the same invoices and we never encounter any problems whatsoever. All the tests that we have done leads me to conclude that the acctual programming of the application is solid and that the trouble must be with the clients own setup seeing as how it only ever seems to occur there.
The problem is ofc that I don't know my hand from my elbow when it comes to Mac and Safari and as such I don't have any idea *how* to troubleshoot it or where the problem might occur. It could be anything from her internet connection/firewall/browser setup/internet options or whatever as far as I know.
Unfortunately the Client is quite a far away, so it is quite difficult for me to check her setup first hand and she is not very computer literate so it is also difficult to get much useful information out of her.
What I know about about her setup so far is this:
- She is using a Macbook Air that she bought last spring (2008) and it is her own personal computer.
- She updated the Safari installation at her local apple store a week ago.
- She has tried installing Firefox and got the same problem there.
- She was unable to find a version of IE that works with her OSX so she has been unable to test it with that browser.
- She says that her internet connection is "wireless broadband" and she hasn't really said anything more about it than that (I doubt she knows or cares about the specifics about such things unfortunately).
- As far as firewalls go I have no idea what she is using, but I doubt very much that she would use anything that wasn't pre-installed on the box when she got it.
I have searched around on the web for similar problems and I found quite a few instances where people seem to have had problems with getting Safari to load some web-pages correctly. Unfortunately I have found no comprihensive answers as to the cause of said problems.
Does anyone have any idea what might cause this problem or how to troubleshoot it? Any idea on how I could test/recreate this problem on my side? Anything I could ask her to do or check on her side?
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Any resourses with information about things like user settings (as it relates to web usage) and/or issues with Safari will definately be of great interest to me.