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Working for a company providing a web-based solution, we are keen to get our site working on Internet Explorer on the xbox. Our site works on IE6 - 10 as well as the main other browsers, however it doesn't work on the xbox's solution.

It uses JS and ExtJS with examples which do work on the xbox. We presume this version of IE is just breaking on something small and want to simply debug this in order to identify the issue.

Does anyone know how to debug for this device's version of IE / or how to emulate this version of IE?

Both Microsoft Support Services related to this problem do not have an answer for this in their current knowledge base.

pnuts
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James Nurse
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  • Just what we need - another version of IE to take into account! I don't know the answer, but I hope someone does as this is something I will need to do in the future. – Alan Shortis Oct 26 '12 at 12:35

3 Answers3

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I've had some luck writing debug logging information to Firebase ( http://www.firebase.com/ ) . Some similar solution (sending text debug info to some remote machine from the Xbox, using a JavaScript-based library) ought to work - I use Firebase because it's relatively easy and I'm familiar with it.

This is obviously a weird way to use Firebase, and a very lame process for debugging. I write debug logging code, upload a new version of my project to a public server, reload on the Xbox, watch for output using the Firebase data debugger, make changes, and repeat.

Sometimes, changes I make break the page in a way that stops execution of my code, and I get no debug data, so I have to step back carefully and figure out what I did. Sometimes after I make a mistake, exiting and reloading IE on the Xbox seems necessary to force the new page to be loaded.

But it works enough of the time to be useful, and I haven't found a better solution, besides just guessing at what the bugs are.

In general, IE on the Xbox 360 is supposed to behave like IE 9, and you should be able to use IE 9 to test content destined for the Xbox. But clearly there are differences. Here are a few things I've learned, some by trial and error:

Not Supported:

  • console.log() (calling it will kill your script execution)
  • prompt()
  • plug-ins, flash, ActiveX controls, etc.

Supported:

  • JavaScript
  • some of HTML5, including Canvas .. but not Local Storage?

It can help in debugging to check the navigator.userAgent string, which will contain the substring "Xbox". The last I checked, I was seeing "5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0; Xbox)".

Whoever told you IE on Xbox doesn't support JavaScript is confused. It works fine.

I'd love to hear of some better debugging techniques.

stay
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  • Thank you very much.. console.log is quite likely the cause as that is dotted all over the code, but thank you for a well documented and detailed answer. Whilst I agree that Javascript does work on xbox IE, that is the official MS company line, which I am still being informed is so on all of their support networks. – James Nurse Nov 14 '12 at 11:47
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    Ghostlab (http://vanamco.com/ghostlab/) should support debugging on Xbox in a future update. – Nathan Pitman May 31 '13 at 08:19
  • Update with official documentation from microsoft - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj883728(v=vs.85).aspx – James Nurse Jun 09 '15 at 14:04
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Thank you all for the responses.

I now have an answer from Microsoft (over 1/2 a year later)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/jj883728(v=vs.85).aspx

THis gives you a lot of information about xbox on IE, however whilst setup for debugging is fast and kinda useful, it doesn't give all errors.

Initially try in IE9 - The xbox 360 is similar however...

Not Supported:

console.log() (calling it will kill your script execution) prompt() plug-ins, flash, ActiveX controls, etc.

Supported:

JavaScript

HTML5 (follows the standards in IE10)

If anyone comes up with a better solution please let me know!

James

James Nurse
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For debugging information in regards to the Xbox then go here

Xbox Debugging

In terms of debugging internet explorer on the xbox it is not something that I have attempted and without my xbox I can't try this.

Have a search around, often things like this aren't primarily on the Microsoft sites but are user created solutions elsewhere on the web

JamesDev
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  • Thank you v. much for the help... as said been googling all over.. but nothing yet! – James Nurse Oct 26 '12 at 12:55
  • If this isn't solved by the end of the weekend (busy Saturday) then I will try and sort out some code for Monday night/ Tuesday afternoon – JamesDev Oct 26 '12 at 13:15
  • Terribly sorry, had a busier weekend/couple of days because of an illness in the family, I will get around to looking at this as soon as I can – JamesDev Oct 31 '12 at 07:38
  • I've been updated over Twitter by a couple of ppl from the xbox support, as they have added info to their knowledge base. They stated that "IE on the console does not suppot Javascript or other similar plugins actually I'm afraid. ^AD"... This is odd as demos running JS do work on IE on the xbox. – James Nurse Nov 06 '12 at 14:08
  • maybe for some reason they don't want people to run JavaScript on xbox dev's so they're trying to put people off it or to guide them away from it – JamesDev Nov 12 '12 at 12:52