Growing frustrations because daily websites that I visit don't work on Surface

[borka105]

Today has been a bad day for me on the Surface. Three websites that I visit daily are not working as they normally should on the Surface because of a new Flash warning message:

1) xbox360.ign.com- videos will not play
2) hbo.com- the site won't even load because of flash
3) espn.com- none of the videos will load because of flash

Now these are not some obscure websites... how can these websites work on my other tablets, but not on the Surface when my other tablets also don't run flash? The warning message does not make sense to me.

The excuse of these websites are not HTML5 compatible, etc... doesn't get you far when all your other competitors are creating devices that allow you to view these websites...

 

[J515OP]

I tested espn on an RT without doing anything at all and it works just fine in desktop. Have you changed any IE settings? Are you using metro or desktop?

 

[bkammerer]

I just tried the IGN site and had no trouble playing videos. Did you just start having trouble with the site or has it never worked for you? I was kind of surprised that hbo.com doesn't work, I use hbogo.com on Surface and just figured the main site would run as well. There is a ESPN app available. However, I've never tried it out so I can't say if it's any good or not. You could also try adding the sites to the flash whitelist yourself. If you do a search on the forums I'm sure you can find out how to do this. On the XDA Developers forums there is a tool that you can download that will simplify the process.

 

[bosamar]

1) xbox360.ign.com- videos will not play

Took me less than 10 seconds to go to that page and play a video on it....

 

[ArnoldC]

If these worked before, perhaps the latest Flash update caused the issue? I won't know because I don't go to these sites.

 

[borka105]

Thanks for the reply guys. I did this all in the metro UI except for HBO. I will try in desktop mode. I will also reset my IE settings to see if that fixes anything.

I do know that both HBO and HBOGO did not work for me on either UI.

To Arnold's point, all of these sites did work for me as of last week which is why I was particularly frustrated.

Also slightly amusing is that I am able to reply to this thread using the onscreen keyboard on my iPad mini which is something the Surface won't let me do... I am just not understanding the limitations of IE when the other browsers have no such issues. If the Surface RT allowed for 3rd party browsers this would be a mute issue.

Will check things in Desktop UI and get back to you.

 

[borka105]

Just checked ESPN on the desktop mode and it does not work. I get the same message as in Metro UI mode.

I would upload my screenshot, but it won't let me here... I don't want to play around with the whitelist especially since it works for all of you guys.

 

[vdek]

Why not just add the sites to the whitelist? There's no reason they shouldn't work...

 

[ArnoldC]

@borka105, I don't want to your frustration but hbo does work with Winows 8 on my Acer.

 

[chatterbot]

Sometimes websites work in the desktop browser but not in the metro browser...I can confirm this.

 

[borka105]

So I went to internet settings and reset all my IE settings and restarted the Surface. The good news is that now everything works except for HBO.com on both Desktop and Metro UI.

It's odd because I had never missed with the settings prior to this, but who knows what could have happened.

I personally do not like to play with the whitelist because I know that Microsoft Updates the flash list frequently. I do not feel like I am knowledgeable enough to play with a setting that was not designed to be messed with by the end user. Who knows what I could screw up by deleting the wrong line of text by accident.

In any case, I am back to being able to view ESPN which to me is quite important. I appreciate all the suggestions and feedback from everyone. Thank you again.

 

[J515OP]

borka, you will be happy to know that the updates replace the whitelist so even if you mess it up you will get a new one. This is an annoyance to some that have modified their whitelist so they either keep a modified backup or have disabled updates. In other words changes you make are only as permanent as the next update.