app.slack.com - Slack huddles are not available on Firefox

[metasieben]

URL: https://app.slack.com/

Browser / Version: Firefox 90.0
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.15
Tested Another Browser: Yes Chrome

Problem type: Something else
Description: Slack huddles are not available on Firefox
Steps to Reproduce:
Slack huddles are a premium feature of Slack, somehow they seem to be locked to a Blink engine UA. When changing the UA to Chrome 92 the UI shows up and afaics works as expected.

View the screenshot

Browser Configuration

• None

From webcompat.com with ❤️

[denschub]

Not surprising given https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1626121, but let's see if we can add an intervention here or if that would break stuff.

[denschub]

I've talked to a few people, and it seems like overriding should be fine. I want to gain a bit more confidence here, so some careful testing needs to be done - mainly to avoid breaking other core features for Firefox users. I've filed https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1727100 to track that work.

[denschub]

Given this does not actually need any diagnosis or other parts of the WebCompat pipeline, I'll close this as a duplicate of said Bugzilla bug. Please follow that one if you're curious. :)

[itaranto]

I believe this should be re-opened since neither huddles nor calls work in latest Firefox (95.0.2) on Linux.

[denschub]

Please see this comment: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1745313#c29

[tmccombs]

It sounds like maybe this is no longer a duplicate of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1727100 and should instead be linked to the "lots of WebRTC/media related issues" that are blocking slack from allowing huddles on Firefox on linux.

Or would it be better for me to create a new issues for "Slack huddles are not available on Firefox on Linux".

FWIW, they are available on linux if you use chrome or the electron app.

Some of the issues we're aware of are related to screensharing and window sharing

This is more of something slack would need to do, but I would much rather have support for huddle without support for screensharing and window sharing than no support at all.

[kidsil]

I'm still experiencing the issue with starting Slack Huddles on Firefox on Linux.
Other audio/video platforms (Meet, Zoom, Team) seem to work fine.

[razvan]

I'm on Firefox 119 on Ubuntu, the audio and video tests pass (see below) but Slack still tries to force me to use Chrome.
As mention above, all other conferencing solutions work on Firefox/Linux.

Please remove this restriction.

team-id=...
call-id=...
audio-input=Succeeded,
audio-output=Succeeded,
video-input=Succeeded,
res1280x720-Succeeded,
res352x288-Succeeded,
res320x240-Succeeded,
audio-connectivity=Succeeded,
video-connectivity=Succeeded,
content-share-connectivity=Succeeded,
network-UDP-connectivity=Succeeded,
network-TCP-connectivity=Succeeded,
microphone=Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Technology Audio Controller Headphones Stereo Microphone,
camera=Integrated Camera: Integrated C,
speaker=Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Technology Audio Controller Speaker + Headphones,

[itaranto]

I think this is being tracked in: #121309

[notorand-it]

@razvan is right.
To me Firefox 119 works with "other" collaboration tools (audio, video and screen sharing), but not with Slack:
No audio, no video and no screen sharing.

[denschub]

Y'all should post your concerns in respectful support tickets you can open with Slack - not here.

[tmccombs]

I don't understand why this bug is closed. The feature works in some browser but not others, specifically firefox for linux, which seems to meet the criteria on the homepage of webcompat.com to me.

It was orginally closed as a duplicate of a firefox bug, but that bug has since been closed, despite the fact that it is still an issue for firefox on linux. I understand that UA spoofing isn't sufficient, at least if you are using screen sharing features, but it is still a compatibility issue.

From https://github.com/webcompat/web-bugs#labels it seems like it should remain open with a status-needscontact status-contactready or status-sitewait.

Y'all should post your concerns in respectful support tickets you can open with Slack - not here.

I have. They simply pointed to an issue in the chime SDK: aws/amazon-chime-sdk-js#2044

[svyotov]

Slack offers a service which does not work on Firefox. Slack is responsible for the tooling it chose to implement it with, so for me this is as much of a slack bug as any other backend too. At the end of the day, I cannot use this service in Slack.

[Janhouse]

Slack is blocking huddle based on user agent. If you install user agent switcher in Firefox and set your user agent of the Slack tab to Chrome, huddle suddenly works.

[daqqad]

Slack is blocking huddle based on user agent. If you install user agent switcher in Firefox and set your user agent of the Slack tab to Chrome, huddle suddenly works.

It doesn't work though. You can't use video and sound at the same time.