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

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

#331

Post by dboreham »

wisebit wrote: post #278
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.

I've always found it fascinating that Windows/Microsoft error messages seem to have some kind of UUID (Error #c101a053 is one I found on my search history from 5 years ago), but you _can't look them up by UUID_ on the MS help pages or even online (and sometimes they don't seem to even be unique). I've always wanted to know what they do with these numbers.

I've used that technique in products I built. Not speaking for MS but in my case the UUID was either written into some server log (to hopefully be used to diagnose the problem if reported), or matched diagnostic statements in our source code (so the problem could be diagnosed in conjunction with the code). Using a unique identifier helps prevent the kind of confusion caused when 3 different developers all decide that "this can't happen" is a good diagnostic message to display to the user.

Fwiw the identifier you posted isn't a UUID but the same justification applies.

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

#333

Post by rplnt »

snackai wrote: post #115
rplnt wrote: post #92

Google is doing this with many of their products. And has been for many, many years. Limiting features, blocking services, etc... based solely on user agent.

Any source for that claim?

Well the missing functionality comes and go, hard to keep track. One current that I know of is Google Maps (the Earth mode).

Also virtually every tech demo they did over the years. One might argue that makes sense, but it really doesn't. Change user agent and it works (it's standards after all, and half the browsers on market are Chromium based anyway).

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

#334

Post by cortesoft »

jacquesm wrote: post #309
eridius wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No we're not. The bug report says 100% CPU. It's very clearly doing something client-side.

That is speculative. Yes, the client side is the one where the problem shows up but it's when the user agent is changed that the problem appears and the client side does not do anything with that user agent, it gets sent to the server. So something in the response from the server or some interaction with the server than causes the 100% CPU load.

That is exactly what the people you are responding to are saying.

The client makes a request to the server, and the server either returns the new optimized client code if the user agent is one that it knows supports the new code, or it sends back the older, slower, client code for an unknown user agent.

They are probably returning the older code because they KNOW it works, even if slower, while they aren't sure if the new code works or not on other machines. The author says it works fine on linux when getting the windows response, but we can't be sure he has tested every use case; maybe it fails under particular conditions, which is why they are still returning the old code. Or, perhaps, they just haven't tested it so they go with the safe thing, which is to return the older code.

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

#335

Post by elastic_church »

yeah, but why? lots of discussions about user-agent detection and how its not a malicious attack against linux users, but no discussion how and why it is slow.

is it protecting users from something further in the UX? is it stuck in an infinite loop trying to download silverlight? are they actually redirecting users to a staging server on the cheapest Azure instance?

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

#336

Post by pbhjpbhj »

emodendroket wrote: post #276
c3534l wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the only time it is buggy if you SAY it's Linux. If you say it's Windows, it works fine. That's not having the software passively become buggy, that's CHANGING the way the software works if and only if the OS is Linux, but working correctly if it's told (but isn't actually) Windows. I don't think this is a conspiracy, but I don't think the characterization that users think that because OneDrive works on Windows b…

It seems entirely plausible that there are optimizations that are only applied on certain platforms or something with the idea that any platform should fall back to the slower but better-supported behavior.

Should be testable, for example what optimisations are in the FF48 code sent to Windows that breaks FF48 on Linux?

MS will I'm sure provide those details to demonstrate their lack of malice. /s

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

#337

Post by Endy »

krylon wrote: post #188
Endy wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

> 'do this incredibly arcane commandline operation' I have seen my fair share of this in the Windows world, too. Edit registry keys you never even heard of, use that (mostly undocumented) command invocation (I'm look at you, SharePoint!), edit that XML file that sits in a place where it does not even make sense... On Linux (and other Unix systems), at least you have man pages, on Windows I cannot recall a single inst…

I will agree that the built in Windows OS help is very sparse. But I find myself (since 3.11) needing it less than I ever needed help with Linux.

If I went back to trying Linux, I'd need a suite of 'just-works' solutions; Plug & Play was the main reason my family moved from DR-DOS & Norton Commander to 95. And of course driver compatibility.

Honestly, if I went to an open OS from 7 at this point, I'd go to ReactOS.

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

#338

Post by fetbaffe »

So basically just one bug and community goes bananas on conspiracy theories.

What is most plausible? Microsoft does vast majority of user testing on Microsoft Windows or that they added sleep() for Linux? Do you know any software developer that works like that?

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

#339

Post by polotics »

blahblah12 wrote: post #248
polotics wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stopped giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt in 1999, never regreted it.

lol, It wasn't nefarious read the reddit thread.

Whatever: incompetence or foul play, doesnt matter because I'm far away.

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

#340

Post by jacquesm »

cortesoft wrote: post #334
jacquesm wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is speculative. Yes, the client side is the one where the problem shows up but it's when the user agent is changed that the problem appears and the client side does not do anything with that user agent, it gets sent to the server. So something in the response from the server or some interaction with the server than causes the 100% CPU load.

That is exactly what the people you are responding to are saying. The client makes a request to the server, and the server either returns the new optimized client code if the user agent is one that it knows supports the new code, or it sends back the older, slower, client code for an unknown user agent. They are probably returning the older code because they KNOW it works, even if slower, while they aren't sure if th…

So, you're telling me Microsoft is unable to tell the difference between code that doesn't work (the 'old' code) and code that does work (the 'new' code), and that to be safe they are returning the non-working code as a fix for potential problems that do not appear to exist?

If there is anything that would be more damaging to Microsoft than calling them malicious it is probably calling them incompetent, that's their core expertise you are challenging there.

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