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For years I've been browsing the site using the SeaMonkey Gecko-engine-based browser. It has the following user agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0 SeaMonkey/2.53.10

Suddenly this afternoon, interacting with most of the site of the site seems broken:

  • I cannot expand vote counts.
  • I cannot expand comment lists.
  • I cannot add a comment (clicking "Add a comment" scrolls to the top of the page.)
  • Previews when posting or editing a post do not appear.
  • Clicking "Review your question" does nothing.

Things render OK, but I can't interact with them.

The change happened shortly after 2021-12-08 19:26:39Z when I was able to post an answer as usual.

I seem to be able to post from another browser with the following user agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/91.0

Did Stack Exchange kill support for this browser today?

Update

I am able to edit a post I made recently, but when I do the preview area does not show, and I see one error and many warnings in the console window, beginning with the following:

Timestamp: 12/8/2021, 4:43:56 PM
Error: SyntaxError: expected expression, got '.'
Source File: https://cdn.sstatic.net/Js/full.en.js?v=c6f3a9a7390a
Line: 1, Column: 235329
Source Code:
Height>n.clientHeight?(n.classList.add("v-truncate-fade"),t?.classList.remove("v-hidden")):(n.classList.remove("v-trunca

Timestamp: 12/8/2021, 4:43:56 PM
Warning: Property contained reference to invalid variable.  Error in parsing value for ‘font-family’.  Falling back to ‘inherit’.
Source File: https://cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/stackoverflow/primary.css?v=ee6784011c19
Line: 1
Source Code:
var(--theme-body-font-family)

Timestamp: 12/8/2021, 4:43:56 PM
Warning: Error in parsing value for ‘background-attachment’ after substituting variables. Generated value was ‘auto’.  Falling back to ‘initial’.
Source File: https://cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/stackoverflow/primary.css?v=ee6784011c19
Line: 1
Source Code:
auto

Timestamp: 12/8/2021, 4:43:55 PM
Warning: Property contained reference to invalid variable.  Error in parsing value for ‘color’.  Falling back to ‘inherit’.
Source File: https://cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/stackoverflow/primary.css?v=ee6784011c19
Line: 1
Source Code:
var(--theme-body-font-color)

Timestamp: 12/8/2021, 4:43:55 PM
Warning: Property contained reference to invalid variable.  Error in parsing value for ‘font-family’.  Falling back to ‘inherit’.
Source File: https://cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/stackoverflow/primary.css?v=ee6784011c19
Line: 1
Source Code:
var(--theme-body-font-family)

Timestamp: 12/8/2021, 4:43:52 PM
Warning: Unknown pseudo-class or pseudo-element ‘-webkit-scrollbar-corner’.  Ruleset ignored due to bad selector.
Source File: https://cdn.sstatic.net/Shared/Channels/channels.css?v=47a5e0f03c81
Line: 1, Column: 33550
Source Code: **Omitted for brevity**

Timestamp: 12/8/2021, 4:43:52 PM
Warning: Unknown pseudo-class or pseudo-element ‘-webkit-scrollbar-thumb’.  Ruleset ignored due to bad selector.
Source File: https://cdn.sstatic.net/Shared/Channels/channels.css?v=47a5e0f03c81
Line: 1, Column: 33430
Source Code:  **Omitted for brevity**

Timestamp: 12/8/2021, 4:43:52 PM
Warning: Unknown pseudo-class or pseudo-element ‘-webkit-scrollbar-track’.  Ruleset ignored due to bad selector.
Source File: https://cdn.sstatic.net/Shared/Channels/channels.css?v=47a5e0f03c81
Line: 1, Column: 33315
Source Code: **Omitted for brevity**

Update #2

Seems that SeaMonkey's JavaScript engine is old enough to lack support for optional chaining. Found a similar sounding issue here for another product: Graphs are broken on Seamonkey #718

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  • 1
    There was a code push around that time? New responsive stuff, though I don't think it touched the things you reported were affected....
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Dec 8, 2021 at 21:01
  • Sounds more like a temporary networking issue than a code push that would break everything. Check console for errors, etc
    – Kevin B
    Dec 8, 2021 at 21:18
  • Some things do work. For instance I was just able to edit a post. However, while I was doing so, no preview was shown below the edit panel.
    – dbc
    Dec 8, 2021 at 21:46
  • 7
    I think it's more likely this is related to the javascript migration as that work has just started. Dec 8, 2021 at 22:08
  • 3
    I wasn't expecting this kind of breaking change to go out so early in the process, but that's what the errors seem to indicate.
    – Kevin B
    Dec 8, 2021 at 22:29
  • What made you think it was ever supported? That's just wrong, because seamonkey is not a main browser. (I know it was posted as answer, my comment is asking where you got the wrong impression, so it might be improved to prevent others from getting false info.) Dec 9, 2021 at 7:48
  • 7
    It's not just Seamonkey that broke. Waterfox Classic is now read-only (no comments, no votes, no drop-downs), mobile Firefox seems affected, and others like Palemoon most likely as well. I'll have to reduce my moderating now, as permanently copy-pasting between multiple browsers is no working mode (I use Waterfox Classic as my main driver, as after that Mozilla broke functionality I need so it's not available in e.g. Waterfox G3/G4 or newer Firefox versions).
    – Izzy
    Dec 9, 2021 at 8:42
  • 1
    @animuson site is also completely broken for the latest version of brave which is build on top of the latest version of chromium.
    – Pizza lord
    Dec 9, 2021 at 10:11
  • @Pizzalord "built on top" means it's something different, SE never officially supported such things (forks of browsers) because they can't possibly test with all hundreds, if not thousands, of such forks. Dec 9, 2021 at 11:09
  • 2
    I posted a request at meta.stackexchange.com/a/372769 . Dec 9, 2021 at 11:53
  • 11
    Thanks for getting in touch! We don't officially support (or test with) any legacy or non-major browsers. That said, in this particular case, it might be a straightforward fix. I'm still investigating, and no promises! Dec 9, 2021 at 15:45
  • 9
    There were only a few mentions of ?. so I've replaced them. Any joy? Dec 9, 2021 at 17:45
  • 9
    @BenjaminHodgson - there is much joy! Everything I mentioned in the question now seems fixed, including posting of comments. Thanks!
    – dbc
    Dec 9, 2021 at 17:50
  • 3
    Confirming for Waterfox Classic as well – many thanks, @BenjaminHodgson, that really saved my day (especially as part of my SE helpers are bound to Classic, legacy and such). Much appreciated! \o/
    – Izzy
    Dec 9, 2021 at 19:08
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    @BenjaminHodgson It seems optional chaining was used again recently, breaking the site again. Mar 1, 2022 at 8:16

1 Answer 1

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Seamonkey never was supported as it's not a major browser. You were fortunate that it worked for as long as it did, though.

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