End users still on IE8? Upgrade them before upgrading to Application Express 5.1 or later

If you have end users of your Application Express (APEX) applications still using Internet Explorer 8, you should upgrade their browsers before upgrading to Oracle Application Express 5.1 or later.

The documented general browser compatibility for Oracle Application Express is N-1, where N is the latest production version of a browser, and N-1 is the major production version prior to that.  At the time of release of Application Express 5.1, Microsoft Edge was the current Microsoft browser and Internet Explorer 11 was the prior major version.

The Oracle Cloud Database Schema Service was recently upgraded to APEX 5.1.1, and a customer contacted me directly, saying that some of his end users who were still on IE8 couldn't even login to the application.  "We" (Anthony and John) reviewed these issues, but concluded that there really wasn't any practical way for us to resolve this for the customer.  We'll move heaven and earth to not impact a customer and avoid unplanned cost and work for them, but in this case, there simply wasn't anything we could do.

If you need a compelling reason to have your end users upgrade to a modern version of Internet Explorer, remember that Microsoft no longer supports or provides security patches for the older IE versions.