tutorial examples not working with internet explorer 9 as default browser.

[Eric Zivot]

I try running the tutorial examples but none of the graphs render on the webpages. I'm runng R 2.15.2 for windows and IE9 is the default browser.

[Joe Cheng]

Sorry, I think we forgot to document this--we have serious compatibility issues with IE9 and below. That's a pretty big oversight, we'll try to correct that soon.

• IE8 currently doesn't work with either Shiny running locally, or Shiny server (e.g. our live example apps on the Shiny homepages).
  
• IE9 currently doesn't work with Shiny running locally, but it does work with Shiny server.
  
• IE10 should work fine with both versions of Shiny.
• If you can install Chrome Frame for IE (any supported version), then both versions of Shiny will work.

Please let us know if this is a problem for you, including what version of IE you need support for, and whether it's an option for your users to install a more up-to-date browser. If IE compatibility is really going to stop adoption of Shiny in companies then we would consider tackling the quite significant engineering tasks needed to solve these compatibility issues. But of course that means time we couldn't spend improving the rest of the framework. So we definitely need your feedback to help us prioritize.

(In case you are interested in the technical details, Shiny relies heavily on a feature of HTML5 called Websockets. IE8 and 9 don't support websockets; Microsoft used to have a free plugin for IE9 that enabled websocket support, but they seem to have pulled it down since IE10 was released. Shiny server works around this limitation by using communication platforms from other languages (that isn't available in R) that it translates to/from websocket traffic. That's why IE9 works on Shiny server but not locally. IE8 doesn't even work on Shiny server because of a different, unrelated issue.)

Thanks for the question!

[Ewen Harrison]

They don't seem to work in Firefox 16 either?

[Ewen Harrison]

I must be doing something wrong. I can't get the examples to work in Chrome Version 23.0.1271.64 m either. Is this correct?

On Friday, November 9, 2012 12:33:07 AM UTC, Joe Cheng [RStudio] wrote:

[Joe Cheng]

No, examples should work fine in all modern non-IE browsers. Can you
see http://glimmer.rstudio.com/jcheng/diamonds? If so, is it possible
that you have an HTTP proxy configured? If so I'd check to make sure
the proxy is being bypassed for localhost. If you google for
"localhost proxy bypass" you should be able to find instructions.

[Thena Good]

This might be obvious to most of you, but I had never changed my default browser.  It's simple enough code, but since I couldn't find a reference for it, thought this might be helpful for others.  On Windows,

options(browser = "C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/firefox.exe")

or whatever the location is for the browser you'd like to use.

Thanks!

[Laszlo Szakacs]

It seems that the HTML UI example doesn't work with Shiny server in IE9 (Win7): http://glimmer.rstudio.com/szakacs/test2/

The other (purely R-generated) examples work.

[Michal Skop]

I confirm the example 01_hello is NOT WORKING on my:
Firefox 18.0 (shows the html ok, but not the chart)
with js errors
Error: ReferenceError: WebSocket is not defined
Source File: http://localhost:8100/shared/shiny.js
Line: 417
and
Error: TypeError: this.$socket is null
Source File: http://localhost:8100/shared/shiny.js
Line: 529

but it WORKS ok in FF for the example http://glimmer.rstudio.com/jcheng/diamonds/

On the other hand, the example 01_hello DOES WORK on:
Chromium Version 20.0.1132.47 Ubuntu 12.04 (~Chrome) if set as default browser

[Joe Cheng]

Can you go to http://aboutmybrowser.com in Firefox, and send us (or at least me) the link that it generates? Thanks. 

--
 
 

--
Sent from my phone

[Alex Brown]

Our corporate standard is IE8, with no sign of that changing soon.

-Alex

[Michal Skop]

https://aboutmybrowser.com/oSVkh6Da

[Joe Cheng]

Huh, that's crazy, I'm running literally exactly the same browser (all fields the same except for resolution) and it works for me.

If you bring up the JavaScript console in Firefox and type "WebSocket" what do you get?

--
 
 

[Jonathan Owen]

I've been unable to get shiny to work on IE9 after installing Chrome Frame.  Are there any additional parameters that must be added to the ui.R script to enable this approach?

I've tried adding tags$head(tags$meta("http-equiv"="X-UA-Compatible", content="chrome=1")) to the ui.R script, but this only results in a HTML1115: X-UA-Compatible META tag ('chrome=1') ignored because document mode is already finalized. error in the IE debugging console.

[Joachim Johansson]

Hi Joe,

 

Shiny can certainly add a lot of value for many companies. However, in my experience, IT departments for large corporations will be quite inflexible regarding which browsers (and plug-ins) they support. It also goes without saying that many IT departments will favour Microsoft solutions, basically because their staff will usually have invested heavily into learning about Microsoft products.

 

For those reasons, I think Shiny would be more widely adopted if it would support IE9 and newer browsers.

 

Kind regards,

Joachim - Zürich

[Joe Cheng [RStudio]]

Thanks for the feedback, noted.

In case it wasn't clear, Shiny apps do support IE8 & 9 when deployed using Shiny Server. It's only when developing or using Shiny apps locally without going through Shiny Server that those browsers don't work.

[Familie Gieshoff]

Hi Joe,

I am running into then same issue. The standard browser is IE 9, I do not have AdMin rights to change this. But obviously there are portable browser versions (e.g. Chrome) available, which can be used without installation.

Is it possible to tell Shiny (perhaps in the future) which browser Shiny should use to override the standard web browser? My attempts with options(browser... and Sys.setenviron("R_BROWSER" = .... were not successful.

Thank you very much for your advice.

Jürgen

[Yihui Xie]

Can you set Google Chrome as the default web browser in its Settings
menu (in the top-right corner)? I'm not sure if that requires admin
rights or not under your Windows. If that does not work, I think you
can set the "browser" option in R with the full path to chrome.exe (I
do not have Windows opened at the moment, so I'm not sure about the
exact name of the executable), e.g. options(browser =
"C:/full/path/to/chrome.exe")

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie <yi...@rstudio.com>
Web: http://yihui.name

[Familie Gieshoff]

Dear Yihui,

unfortunately in our cooperate IT environment I do not have the rights to change the standard web browser. But I was able to use a portable version of Chrome (not to be installed). A change to Chrome as standard browser is not "accepted/acknowledged" by the system.

I have tried the "option(browser = ....)-idea but I have the impression that Shiny (used without Shiny Server) always picks the standard web browser. (Also the Sys.setenviron-method does not work....)

Thank you very much for your post

Jürgen

[Yihui Xie]

I do not think Windows has that much power to stop you, as an
individual user, from changing your own preference. You certain may
not be able to change the default web browser of the whole system
(that does require the IT people), but I think it should be entirely
okay to change it only in your own account. To verify that, I just
logged into our Windows server, where I do not have admin rights, and
I was able to do that in Chrome.

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie <yi...@rstudio.com>
Web: http://yihui.name

[ZJ]

Actually I think there are some draconian corporate IT environments where they can lock almost any setting.

So Jurgen's situation might be real.

[Yihui Xie]

Sorry to hear about that... :-(

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie <yi...@rstudio.com>
Web: http://yihui.name

[Familie Gieshoff]

Hi,

I think, I have found a workaround for me.

As a reminder:

Shiny (used locally) would like to use the standard web browser. In our cooperate environment we are working with IE 9 as standard browser without having the possibility to change to another browser. And... IE 9 is not suitable for Shiny used without Shiny Server.

But, it is possible to work with e.g. Chrome as portable web browser.

Using Shiny will start IE 9, the app will not work properly and error messages will pop up in the console of R. If one opens additionally http://localhost:8100 in Chrome, the app is working fine (at least for me) in Chrome.

Perhaps this approach is helpful for others as well.

Best regards,

Jürgen  

[Yihui Xie]

Nice trick! Thanks!

Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie <yi...@rstudio.com>
Web: http://yihui.name

[Jose Magaña]

Thank you very much for your post!

You saved my day!