Error Message trying to access weather.com

[debodun]

I am getting this display on all weather.com pages despite clearing the site cookie:

 

[townsbg]

Working for me. It might have been a temporary glitch. If it's still going on for you try using troubleshooting mode or switch to another browser.

 

[debodun]

It does open using just the URL weather.com, but when I select my location, it gives the error message. This is the full URL:

Weather Forecast and Conditions for Stillwater, New York 12170 | weather.com

 

[townsbg]

I'm getting that as well in Firefox but not Opera gx. I find that it works better on opera gx so try a chrome based browser.

 

[debodun]

Thanks for looking into this.

 

[townsbg]

I couldn't find anything official but you can try to contact them here: Accessibility Statement - The Weather Channel | weather.com

 

[debodun]

I did - awaiting a reply.

 

[dg1261]

I think the problem is your browser is too old. According to your specs, you're using Firefox on Win7, which means you're probably using Firefox 115 ESR.

I get exactly the same error as in your post #1 if I use Firefox Portable 115.22 ESR. I do not get any error if I use R3dfox Portable 128 ESR or 142. R3dfox is a fork using the same open source base code as Firefox.

My belief is that the ESR versions are kept up-to-date with security updates but do not get the non-security updates. (See discussion here.) Thus, FF115 ESR gets v142 security updates but non-security updates are frozen at the 115 level. R3dfox 142 gets both security and non-security updates from FF142.

Thus, Firefox 115 may be up-to-date security-wise, but does not include non-security features added in later versions only available on Win 10/11. The weather.com website must be relying on back-end CMS features that are only available in "modern" browsers released after FF 115. Thus, the crashing on a 115 browser.

In contrast, r3dfox uses the same base code being used in later Win10 Firefox versions but is back-porting it to be able to run on Win 7, even though the Firefox devs won't do that themselves. Thus, r3dfox 142 is using the same base code as Firefox 142 but running on Win7. My guess is the weather.com CMS is happy with the 142 code (and apparently even with the FF128 ESR code), so doesn't crash.

The bottom line is Firefox 115 may still be secure (for now) but is just too old. Switch to a more modern browser.

Note the same issue probably exists in the Chromium camp. Chrome ceased Win7 support with v109, but a number of forks have continued to back-port post-109 non-security updates in their forks for Win7.

 

[townsbg]

I only tried on Windows 7. Just trying FF140 on Windows 10 I have confirmed that it works so dg1261 is right. However it does work for me on opera gx 95 (based upon chromium 106) on windows 7 so there is an alternate for now.

 

[dg1261]

it does work for me on opera gx 95 (based upon chromium 106) on windows 7 so there is an alternate for now.

Interesting observation, townsbg. So I did a few quick tests with some portable versions of old browsers to see which would render debodun's link in post #3.

Google Chrome 89 gave the "Application error" msg as in post #1.
Google Chrome 99 gave no error, but the page was kind of mangled and unnavigable.
Google Chrome 107 worked fine.

I tried a few other Chromium-based browsers (Opera, Iron, Brave, Ungoogled-Chromium) and results were consistent with the Chromium base version they were based on, as above.

Based on a little further testing, the shift in what is acceptable to weather.com's CMS seems to have occurred around Chromium 104-106 and Firefox 119-121. So any forks based on subsequent versions should perform fine.