ie9 not supporting geolocation? - geolocation

Question

Greetings Everyone,
I am creating a web application that uses the Geolocation API to locate the end user. It works great on almost every platform I can think of except for Internet Explorer 9. Things get a little stranger though. If I have my Google Toolbar loaded into my Internet Explorer browser window, everything sails smoothly. Here is the offending chunk of code that I have been working with:
if (navigator.geolocation) {
var locationMarker = null;
navigator.geolocation.watchPosition(
function( position ){
var point = new google.maps.LatLng(position.coords.latitude, position.coords.longitude);
if (!locationMarker) {
locationMarker = addMarker(
position.coords.latitude,
position.coords.longitude,
"Initial Position"
);
}
else{
updateMarker(
locationMarker,
position.coords.latitude,
position.coords.longitude,
"Updated / Accurate Position"
);
};
map.setCenter(point);
if (map.zoom < 17){
map.setZoom(17);
};
},
function( error ){
console.log( "Something went wrong: ", error );
},
{
timeout: (5 * 1000),
maximumAge: (1000 * 60 * 15),
enableHighAccuracy: true
}
);
}
else {
alert("Geolocation is not supported by this browser");
}
Whenever I access my application with Internet Explorer 9 I get the "Geolocation is not supported by this browser" alert. That is unless I have my Google Toolbar active. If the Google Toolbar is active however, then the Google Toolbar handles the permissions.
How do I get geolocation to work in IE9? My application works flawlessly in Safari, Firefox, Chrome, iOS and Android. I am totally stumped.
Thanks, Tyler Waring

Answer 1

user1303379,
IE9 and IE10 both support geolocation, however earlier versions of IE do not support it ( reference http://caniuse.com/#feat=geolocation ). Here is a blog post by IE about geolocation in IE9 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/17/w3c-geolocation-api-in-ie9.aspx and here is a test page using navigator.geolocation.watchPosition like you are above.
For browsers that don't support geolocation you may consider using one of the geolocation polyfills listed here https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/wiki/HTML5-Cross-Browser-Polyfills
IE9 & IE10 ask the user if they would like to share their location http://cl.ly/image/0X0o2F0s1N03 My guess is that you may have denied access to your location at some point.
The Google Toolbar added a feature to determine geolocation back in the IE8 days http://googletoolbarhelp.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-toolbar-6413211732-for-ie.html From what you describe it sounds like the Google Toolbar started to provide geolocation since the native IE9 geolocation was denied access.