Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

answers.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 492 posts

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#161

Post by mirimir »

easytiger wrote: post #120
adsfqwop wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I google a problem with a microsoft product, and the search ends up on one of these answer.microsoft.com pages, I always click on the link with an enormous feeling of dread. I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

As a linux user since the 90s, googling for basic issues on Windows is an unmitigated disaster. For linux I have always got a correct answer.

I was once told by Microsoft support that what I wanted to do was impossible, because the code was so old and chaotic that nobody understood how it worked ;)

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#162

Post by Nelson69 »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #132
herbst wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then how else would such behaviour be explainable? I thought about reasonable explanations but i doubt a little background process that notices a unsupported user agent would act up like this

It could very well be because of a lack of testing on that platform. Assumption is the mother of all fuckups, especially when you speculate about intentions.

Sure it could.

At the same time, this company has printed money for 30 years, not just beat the competition but killed the competition in many cases, and even made that an internal mantra. They have a pile of very smart people, money, etc.. there are also browser compatibility test services. They could have a VM grid with every interesting browser ever and it's not a big cost to them. A 15 person startup? I get they you might skip some browsers and focus on a key supported set. The tooling for that VM grid is also something I think a lot of the community would eat up of MS made available, there are lots of ways to build good karma and improve community relations.

Intentional or not, it's just bad optics, if nothing else. A slate with the windows 10 linux subsystem looked like an interesting environment to play around with and maybe give a shot. This sort of thing makes it look a lot less interesting. No joke, I was thinking of getting my kids one.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#163

Post by jlarocco »

adsfqwop wrote: post #100
morinted wrote: post #9

Unhelpful catch-all responses that don't display a shred of effort or care are the bane of my customer support experiences. Nothing hurts my opinion of a company like being brushed off like a bug.

Whenever I google a problem with a microsoft product, and the search ends up on one of these answer.microsoft.com pages, I always click on the link with an enormous feeling of dread. I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

> I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

To be fair, that isn't specific to Microsoft, and a lot of big company's support sites are useless.

IME, Apple's Q&A discussion site is equally useless. The answers there are always along the lines of "That's by design, you can't do that." or "Why do you want to turn that off anyway?!?" I've had much better luck on apple.stackexchange.com

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#164

Post by reboog711 »

Keverw wrote: post #135
glogla wrote: post #6

I have to admit, the whole exchange is pretty funny: > Hello, Onedrive for Business open is very slow on Linux (Chrome/Firefox) but with very fast with a "Windows" user-agent. > Hi DL, As Office 365 for Business services(e.g. SharePoint Online, including OneDrive for Business, Exchange Online) are not supported on Linux as shown below, for the best experience, we recommend the operating system listed in the article.…

I found that interesting too. I'm not familiar with office 365, but isn't it web based? So why does it matter what browser or OS you use?

My office 365 Home install is not cloud based in any way as far as I can tell. All the 'traditional' office programs such as Excel and Word are installed locally.

There may be some cloud integration to OneDrive or something similar, but I haven't used that. It is nothing like Google Docs.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#165

Post by arca_vorago »

easytiger wrote: post #120
adsfqwop wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I google a problem with a microsoft product, and the search ends up on one of these answer.microsoft.com pages, I always click on the link with an enormous feeling of dread. I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

As a linux user since the 90s, googling for basic issues on Windows is an unmitigated disaster. For linux I have always got a correct answer.

As a sysadmin who has supported the gamut of OS's, the key to windows problem googling is the "-" operator. -microsoft.com -expertsexchange.com ...

Stackoverflow really changed the game. I really should get active there again to give back more, I can't tell you how much a random stackover/superuser question helped me narrow down an issue.

Also, has everyone forgotten about IRC?

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#166

Post by cname »

Rantenki wrote: post #74
rhizome wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems something more like: case @useragent when 'Windows' send file fast when 'OSX' send file fast else sleep 3600

More likely something like: resolve_renderer_module(user_agent.os) where the osx/Windows ones are already loaded in RAM, but it has to try (and fail) to load the linux one every time somebody tries. This is classic Hanlon's razor stuff.

Is it possible that companies, teams within companies, and/or individuals might exploit "Hanlon's Razor" to their own benefit? It's easy to say "Oh, whoops" and often there's no easy way to prove incompetence vs malice. And because people are aware of this cliche/meme, they may be more susceptible to it.

I wonder if people said "Hanlon's Razor" when they first heard about the VW emissions scandal.

NOTE: I'm just thinking out loud here. I don't have any particular bias against Microsoft.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#167

Post by Endy »

easytiger wrote: post #120
adsfqwop wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I google a problem with a microsoft product, and the search ends up on one of these answer.microsoft.com pages, I always click on the link with an enormous feeling of dread. I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

As a linux user since the 90s, googling for basic issues on Windows is an unmitigated disaster. For linux I have always got a correct answer.

As a Windows user since the 90ss, when I tried using Linux for a week or two on a spare machine while my primary laptop was in the shop... Trying to find any information on Linux that didn't involve books' worth of text saying 'compile this', 'write this program in C', or 'do this incredibly arcane commandline operation' became an exercise in futility. Whenever I have a specific problem in Windows, I can Google it and either find a relevant YouTube video or something of value in the Microsoft knowledge base (separate from the "answers." Q&A board).

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#168

Post by cookiecaper »

sqeaky wrote: post #154
cookiecaper wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft's cash cow has always been Windows, and secondarily, Office. That directed their decisions then and it directs their decisions now. The landscape may change such that Microsoft feels it is beneficial to release things like .NET Core as open-source, but this doesn't reflect a change in what Microsoft values ("A PC on every desk running Microsoft software" and the associated revenue streams), it reflects a ch…

Saying "its a business decision" doesn't justify unethical and potentially illegal behavior. This is either incompetence or malice. If it is malice it falls well on the wrong side antitrust behavior. If its incompetence, well it isn't much better is it?

Although I don't think it's unethical to intentionally make the experience slower for some users, I'm not trying to justify it.

I'm trying to explain that as long as Microsoft's incentives align with making Windows dominant, they're going to engage in behaviors to make it happen, including things like artificially slowing connections from non-Windows machines.

Instead of saying "MS is releasing stuff open-source, they must be having a change of heart", we should say "MS believes that opening this as open-source is the best way to ensure Windows' continued dominance". That's what I'm trying to highlight.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#169

Post by pjmlp »

hashkb wrote: post #151
Keverw wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that interesting too. I'm not familiar with office 365, but isn't it web based? So why does it matter what browser or OS you use?

Just MS up to its old (classic) tricks.

Doesn't Hangouts only work properly on Chrome?

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#170

Post by simias »

7952 wrote: post #65
simias wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see it that way. I don't think Microsoft would be expected to offer support for an operating system that's not officially supported. I could see only two ways this could've turned out, either "we're planning to support linux in a future version, we'll keep you updated when that happens" or exactly what we got here. If this is actually a bug then I think it would be rather inappropriate for the support…

Web apps are marketed as "working anywhere" you have a browser. The underlying OS should not matter, and that again is a selling point. And presumably this issue is present on mobile browsers with low market share.

That's not the point I'm trying to make. Clearly support has to draw the line somewhere, "working anywhere" is not a reasonable commitment. Linux is not officially supported, the problem doesn't occur (I assume) on supported configurations, therefore it's not up to support to deal with this.

I genuinely can't imagine what else the guy could do, checking for unsupported configurations is probably item #2 on his script, item #1 being "say 'Hi'".

Post reply on HN