How to get Tumblr working again for embedded IE browsers

Some of you may have noticed over the past couple weeks that Tumblr is not working inside of webDOM. You may have also noticed that Tumblr has stopped working in Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. Whenever you click on a link to go to your dashboard or another page, all of the sudden webDOM crashes.

The first thing you need to verify is that you're using Windows 7. There is a different fix for WinXP but it includes using a proxy server that can mask the User-Agent string of the browser and will be covered in a different tutorial. The Windows 7 fix includes using Internet explorer 9. If you do not have IE9, download and install it now before continuing. To check your version of internet explorer, open it up, then click on the "Help" button in the toolbar and click "About".

After you have the proper version of IE for Windows 7, you can follow the next steps to get Tumblr working on your computer:

1. Make sure that webDOM is shut down and that no instances of the program are running
2. Click the Windows Start button
3. Type in "regedit" in the start search bar, then hit enter
4. Click on "Edit" then on "Find"... or just hit "Ctrl + F"
5. Enter into the search box "FEATURE_BROWSER" and hit enter, then wait for the search to find the proper key
6. On the right side, right-click and then under "New" choose, new DWORD. (DWORD is 32-bit)
7. Name the new DWORD "webDOM.exe" capitals matter.
8. Right click on your new DWORD and click "Modify"
9. In the value enter "1F40" (one F four zero) ... that's a hexidecimal value... then hit enter
10. Open webDOM as usual

It's important that you follow these steps exactly as they are written. This means that on step 7 when you are entering webDOM.exe as your new DWORD, you must have "DOM" in capital letters or the fix will not work. This is the same for any application which uses the same method to automate on Tumblr. Just replace "webDOM.exe" with the name of your application.

Tumblr has been working on their new interface and it has caused issues with older versions of internet explorer. However, the fact that you can simply change your user agent to above MSIE 7 or a whole other accepted browser points to a possible "security" based reason to do this. Most automation systems that are running on tumblr use the embedded (ActiveX) version of internet explorer and it seems Tumblr has targeted this directly. Even if internet explorer 9 is installed, the user agent for webDOM will show up as version 7.

Despite their attempts to block out undesirable users by using a generalized filter, Tumblr needs a bit more effort to reach their goal of a "no-automation" social network. Unfortunately they are growing, and we all know that the more things are resisted, the more they persist. They have entered into the never-ending arms race of anti-automation. Surely there will be new limits placed on following, commenting, and the like soon.