My new tab region being locked to Mainland China while my region is not China

Brass Contributor

I think my new tab being locked to Mainland China because there is a IPC license number at left bottom of my new tab.

And i was not able to see an option to change my region inside the setting button at top right of new tab.

 

My IP address was from HongKong, my account region was HongKong, and i confirm my Windows region was set to Hongkong, but... Why the fxxking new tab does not follow my setting? why change region option was removed after it locked to China???

20 Replies
Hi,
Which Edge channel are you using?
can you post screenshot of the settings items you are talking about?

@HotCakeX 

gocloud_0-1582511602782.png

This is a normal one, with region select, i am using both stable and canary channel

Well your region is not locked to China in this screenshot that I see

This one is not mine, mine new tab does not have this option...

Yours is missing "language & content" part? that's strange. it should be there, on stable channel, because stable doesn't use controlled feature rollout so the experience should be the same. are you sure you can't post a screenshot of your own system?

@gocloud Thanks for reaching out, and we're sorry to hear that you're encountering issues with the new tab page! If you haven't yet, can you please submit feedback through the browser? Our devs would love to take a look at the diagnostic logs to better figure out what's happening here.

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

@Deleted Can you explain why NTP is locked to China while browser primary language was set as zh-CN?


Browser primary language set as zh-CN does not mean the current user (a people) or it's account belongs to China.

It could mean this device was used by multiple people for work and some of them can only read Chinese.

 

Every language except zh-CN have this option :backhand_index_pointing_down:

gocloud_0-1585907578773.png

 

Locked meaning you can't change the language on the new tab page?

@HotCakeX Yes, there is no such option while browser primary language was set to Simplified Chinese,  I am sure both ip address and system region was US.

@gocloud Thanks for sharing that screenshot again. To follow-up on my last reply, did you have a chance to submit detailed feedback and diagnostic logs through the browser? It would really help our devs. In the meantime, I'll follow up with our New Tab Page team and will let you know if they can provide any insights.

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

@gocloud 

 

Spoiler

@gocloud wrote:

@HotCakeX Yes, there is no such option while browser primary language was set to Simplified Chinese,  I am sure both ip address and system region was US.


Here's my findings. I have US IP and language settings in Windows.

 

Using Edge Version 83.0.477.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit)

set my Edge language to a couple of Chinese language variations:

 

Spoiler
Simplified ChineseSimplified Chinese

 

Simplified ChineseSimplified Chinese

 

Chinese (Traditional) - 中文(繁體)Chinese (Traditional) - 中文(繁體)

 

Chinese (Traditional) - 中文(繁體)Chinese (Traditional) - 中文(繁體)

 

and as you can see they all offer all languages for the New tab page.

 

there are some other Chinese variations such as these:

 

Spoiler
dasdsada.png

 

77.png

 

7.png

 

but as you can see in the screenshots, the option to set them as the display language in Edge is unavailable.

 

 

I suggest you to clean uninstall Edge canary, remove user data when asked during uninstall (it's a small checkbox) and then install it again to check.

 

 

@HotCakeX We are on different server..

 

You can try to open developer tool on new tab, and type "location.href" on Console tab, you will see the url is "https://ntp.msn.com/edge/ntp?locale=zh-CN&dsp=0&sp=Google"

 

But mine is "https://ntp.msn.cn/edge/ntp?locale=zh-CN&dsp=0&sp=Google", ntp.msn.com and ntp.msn.cn was different site, ntp.msn.com has multiple language include Chinese with a option to change language, but ntp.msn.cn does not.

 

I tried but i can't figure out why mine Edge will load ntp.msn.cn on new tab, ntp.msn.cn looks like a customize version for Chinese user without ability to change their region and maybe data will transfer into server located at China?

Did you install Edge using a Chinese installer?

try this:
make sure your country in Windows is set to US.
connect to your VPN that is from another country other than China.
go to this URL: https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download/

download Canary online setup from there (pay attention to the URL not to change at any point, like en-us change to ch-zn)

install Edge Canary and see if the problem still exists.

@HotCakeX 

No, it was installed with English installer but primary language set to Simplified Chinese, because it's a browser scope setting not user scope.

I don't use a VPN and this is the default IP for all internet traffic.

gocloud_0-1586320661067.png

 

I tried remove property "intl" with value "en-US" from "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Edge SxS\User Data\LocalState", then my new tab restored to ntp.msn.com. I don't understand why remove language setting will change this behavior.

 

I think there are more complex logic to detect user's location, and only engineer at MSFT know about it's detail.

 

Well I would know how to solve it on my system on my own
but I don't have direct access to your system and we can't discuss just any method publicly so I think you should wait until your feedback gets a response.

@gocloud Thanks for submitting feedback! I've reached out to this team and will let you know if they have any solutions to pass on.

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

@gocloud I chatted with the team about this and they would love to do some further troubleshooting with you. If you're comfortable with that, feel free to send me a private message and we can work out the next steps.

 

Thanks!

 

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

@Deleted It doesn't happen anymore since i reject all DNS resolve request to ntp.msn.cn and removed my "Local State" file in application data folder, but i see same report at Twitter.

https://twitter.com/FrasSmith/status/1224238340280483840?s=20

This is another report from Twitter, but he said he was in China with account region set to UK.

 

Can you explain why the new tab does not follow system region or account region by default?

 

Does this mean if someone travel to China then his recent visit history (sites displayed in new tab) will send to server in China and store at there? I know datacenter could located in different country but as i know there are a lot of censorship in China and they could leaks user's privacy.

 

I think this could be a reason of my new tab was locked to China, i had a travel to China and Hong Kong at early of this year with this device. But it shouldn't lock my new tab after i leave from there...