Edge displays url-overflow page, but IE11 displays dashboard, then fatal error

[GrahamHannington]

Kibana version: 5.5

Browser version:

• Edge 38.14393.1066.0
• Internet Explorer (IE) 11.1593.14393.0

Browser OS version: Windows 10

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to the list of dashboards (.../kibana#/dashboards) in Kibana.

• Both browsers, Edge and IE, display the list of dashboards.

2. Click a dashboard in the list.

• Edge displays a url-overflow page that cites state:storeInSessionStorage and the option “Don't use IE”.
• IE displays the dashboard. Click something in the dashboard; for example, click a down arrow to expand a legend. IE displays the fatal error described in Better error handling for IE11 users accessing large dashboards #6531 et al. Yes, some of my dashboards have lots of visualizations, and I don’t want to split them up.

I think the behavior should be the same: IE should display the url-overflow page, too.

Setting state:storeInSessionStorage to true seems (I have only done limited testing) to work for both Edge and IE. Edge no longer displays the url-overflow page, and neither Edge nor IE displays that fatal error in dashboards.

All the above aside, I’m with “Don’t use IE [or Edge]”. In my experience, Kibana is significantly faster in Chrome (I guess thanks to V8) than in either IE or Edge.

Related terminological nitpicking

Edge is not IE.

From the web page “Support for older versions of Internet Explorer ends”:

Internet Explorer 11 is the last version of Internet Explorer ... Microsoft Edge is our all-new browser for Windows 10 ... Internet Explorer 11 will be supported for the life of Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.

Microsoft characterizes Edge an “all-new” browser, not just a later version of IE.

The Kibana browser support matrix in the Elastic docs contains columns for “IE9” and “IE11+”, but not Edge. I'm guessing that, by “IE11+”, your writers mean something like “IE11 and Edge”. At least, that’s how I interpret it.

I think it would be more helpful to users—potentially less confusing—if your docs and in-app messages differentiated between IE and Edge; or at least, cited both, where both are applicable. (MDN browser compatibility tables have separate columns for IE and Edge.)

As mentioned above, when I was using Edge, Kibana displayed a page that offered the option, “Don’t use IE.” That jarred: I wasn’t using IE. “... or Edge” would be less jarring, in cases where the text applies to both browsers.

[marius-dr]

Hello,

This issue has been solved in the following PR: #10546
It should be OK in Kibana 5.5.1 and newer.

[GrahamHannington]

Thanks very much for pointing me to that PR; I'll try 5.5.1 soon, and see if that page still says “Don’t use IE” when I’m using Edge 🙂.

Any thoughts on my terminological nitpicking? “IE11+” implies the existence—or at least, the possibility of the existence in the future—of a version of IE later than 11. According to Microsoft, IE11 is the last version of IE. Hence, “IE11+” is, at face value, bogus. And using “IE11+” to mean “IE11 or Edge” is potentially confusing: it requires users to understand that it shouldn’t be taken at face value; that the “+” refers to Edge. Separate columns for IE11 and Edge would be clearer. Or should I take this up in a new issue?

The difference in behavior between IE11 and Edge, the incorrect reference to IE on the url-overflow page, and the use of “IE11+” in docs all strike me as being closely related in terms of how the Elastic development team treats IE11 vs Edge, which is why I thought they deserved to be described—at least, initially—together, in a single issue. Should I now create separate, more granular issues?