(1623340) Firefox compatibility with Microsoft Teams and Teams for friends and family

Firefox Development
#1

User agent overrides

Spun off from https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1623340#c5

A fix would be for Firefox to spoof its own user-agent string, so it represents itself as whatever the latest version of Edge is.

The functionality works, but Microsoft is blocking it through user-agent sniffing. …

Firefox could spoof the user-agent when any Microsoft site is visited (based on a list of primary domains, perhaps). …

… In addition to the HTTP User-Agent, changes may also be needed to data in the window.navigator object to circumvent this.

Earlier this week I began testing this Edge string (the latest):

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.102 Safari/537.36 Edg/85.0.564.51

– overriding these two URLs:

https://teams.microsoft.com/
https://statics.teams.cdn.office.net/

– specified in Custom UserAgent String added to Firefox 80.0.1 on FreeBSD-CURRENT.

Results

Meet in a group context: a moment after apparently beginning the meeting – the camera image appears as it should – the image disappears, leaving an alert:

Sorry, we couldn’t connect you.

– and two buttons:

  • Retry
  • Dismiss

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– retries do not succeed.

Unwanted effects of the override include breakage of OneNote:

Sorry, we ran into a problem.

Your feedback helps Microsoft improve OneNote. Give feedback to Microsoft

  • Restart

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– restarts lead to the same problem.

Without the override for the two domains

OneNote works:

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With the override for https://teams.microsoft.com/ alone

OneNote breaks.

With the override for https://statics.teams.cdn.office.net/ alone

OneNote works.

Meet in a group context results in an explicit alert, before the AV dialogue:

Use the app or a supported browser

…

Related

#2

Hi,
any news on this issue?
Thank you

#3

On the Mozilla side: none that I can see.

On the Microsoft side:

#4

Off-topic: Zoom

From @andreip at https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/36946039-calls-support-in-firefox-mozilla:

This is why I use Zoom. Zoom just works on the web in Firefox.

I should not encourage use of Zoom.

Recently I was invited to two meetings – online rallies – both of which included an invitation to join from the browser, both of which failed when the invitation was accepted. Poor user experience.

The first meeting – using Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 1909 – was particularly troublesome, because the failure directed me to download Zoom from Microsoft’s Store, in a managed environment where it was impossible to do so. I was forced to go elsewhere and use a different computer.

A screenshot of the second failed meeting – Google Chrome on FreeBSD-CURRENT:

2020-12-10 12:07:11
2020-12-10 12:07:11870×479 49.8 KB

– less troublesome than the first, in that download of the installer for Zoom succeeded (without requiring Microsoft’s Store) but still, a poor user experience.

I was misled (by Zoom) into believing that Zoom would work in web browsers, but it didn’t, and the discoveries caused me to miss the beginnings of both meetings.

From https://github.com/webcompat/web-bugs/issues/25070#issuecomment-743936967

… I was able to record even a call in zoom. It works well for me.

I don’t doubt it :slight_smile: but I should not recommend use of a service that misrepresents itself.

Nightclub organiser:

Come to our club tonight! No footwear restrictions. Just register in advance.

Doorman:

Your name’s on the list. Come in! No footwear restrictions. Now turn around. Go away. You can’t come in wearing trainers. Go to that shoe shop – over there – register and sign in over there to get a pair of shoes that suit our non-advertised restrictions.

Shoe shop:

Welcome! Thank you for signing in; we require this before selling shoes. Now turn around. Go away. We’re not allowed to sell shoes to you.

#5

teams.live.com (Teams for friends and family)

I lazily use this override:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.102 Safari/537.36 Edg/85.0.564.51

It’s enough for text chat but (as expected) not enough for video.

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Postscript

Re: https://github.com/phts/firefox-web-skype/issues/9 I now (more lazily) use web.skype.com for Firefox

#6

Any news on this? This is what I get when I spoof with Microsoft Edge:

ff_spoofing_edge

What are the technologies used by Microsoft Teams that Firefox doesn’t support? Why we can’t just implement the support on our own after spoofing?

#7

From https://github.com/webcompat/web-bugs/issues/25070#issuecomment-751324990:

… MS Teams so far only supported Chrome’s proprietary Plan B for SDP used in WebRTC. Teams switched to the standard way (aka Unified Plan) of doing things, but are facing now issues from designing everything around Chrome initially. …

#8

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

@drno @karlcow hi, no mention of Firefox, Plan B or SDP on the roadmap.

Please, can you think of any other phrase that Microsoft might use when, eventually, mapping occurs?

Microsoft Teams UserVoice

Calls support in Firefox (Mozilla) – Microsoft Teams UserVoice

  • 415 votes

Generally

From https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/:

Microsoft will be moving away from UserVoice sites on a product-by-product basis throughout the 2021 calendar year. We will leverage 1st party solutions for customer feedback. Learn more

From Microsoft’s UserVoice Pages:

… a variety of channels that allow customers to communicate with us. Including:

Microsoft Teams in Microsoft Community

https://answers.microsoft.com/msteams

  • this non-localised link will redirect to your locale.

Microsoft Teams in Microsoft Tech Community

#9

Using the UA Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.74 Safari/537.36 Edg/79.0.309.43 to override https://teams.microsoft.com/ I was able to join video calls, speak, use the chat, and OneNote

1 Like
#10

It is awesome! I tried it with Custom User Agent addon and confirm that even desktop sharing works!

#11

There’s a problem, as pictured in the opening post, and Restart does not resolve the problem.

#12

Interesting, I haven’t encountered it yet

#13

I think now there is a fix for it in firefox by an extension it uses the user agent from the Edge browser and it works flawlessly even tho there is no first-party support but at least you can now use it here is the link

1 Like
#14

From the opening post:

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This problem occurs when Custom UserAgent String is used to prefer an override for the https://teams.microsoft.com/ domain.

Details of the problem have been reported to the developer of Custom UserAgent String via the given support site, https://mybrowseraddon.com/custom-useragent-string.html.

When Teams Phone Fix is used to prefer the same override for the same domain: no such problem.

#15

Maybe not.

At the time of writing, for teams.live.com:

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  • no audio output.

Later:

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– and so on.

#16

Tested with a different profile, Teams Phone Fix can’t fix Teams for friends and family:

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  • teams.live.com is out of scope for the extension.
#17

Mozilla fixed the issue with teams and ETP on firefox 96. However, video call still requires the hack.

#18

Hello everybody,
as already reported in the bugzilla report of Mozilla, the problem with calls in Teams still persists - both for audio and video calls - at least on my side: I use the current Nightly version of FF in Windows 10 64-bit: 106.0a1 (2022-09-05) (64-bit).
Can anyone else confirm this behavior? Is there any progress on this topic?
Thank you very much!

#19

https://github.com/webcompat/web-bugs/issues/25070#issuecomment-1346973196 yesterday:

Good news! I was just able to use teams in a conference call without any workaround add-ons installed! Video works fine both ways.

Firefox 108.0: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:108.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/108.0.

From the subsequent comment:

… conference calls are now working on Linux with Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:108.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/108.0. …

Yesterday I joined a scheduled conference call (I clicked the Join button in a Teams area). I made no attempt to speak, other people were audible.

I made no attempt to use the chosen webcam.

After some time staring at the array of participants, whilst listening, I joined (without transferring) using an iPad.

Video was:

  • present in Teams on the iPad
  • not present in Firefox.

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:108.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/108.0

#20

From https://github.com/webcompat/web-bugs/issues/118070#issue-1579196443:

… If you spoof the browser agent to be Chrome, one on one calls mostly work.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/114.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

A click on the Video call button has the following result:

image

  • No available camera found

– and when not aiming to make a video call, there’s the previously described breakage of OneNote:

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% pkg iinfo firefox
firefox-114.0.1,2
% uname -aKU
FreeBSD mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd 14.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT #7 main-n263630-ab3e6234ab6e-dirty: Sun Jun 18 14:56:48 BST 2023     grahamperrin@mowa219-gjp4-8570p-freebsd:/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC amd64 1400090 1400090
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