Closed Bug 218257 Opened 21 years ago Closed 3 years ago

Should not be able to use Firefox for Open With

Categories

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect, P3)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
File Handling
Platform:
All
Windows
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: sdelfranco, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: common-issue+) 

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624
Build Identifier: 

Firebird seems to be executing "mozillaFirebird.exe <file>", doing a recursive
and infinite window opening.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a non-standar file with firebird (for example an .asp file)
2. When "Open with..." window appears, browse to select MozillaFirebird and
select to open always with it.
3. Click OK.
4. Make the "Three finger salute" and proceed to kill Firebird before your
system collapse.
Actual Results:  
Lots of Firebird windows opened.

Expected Results:  
I'd like Firebird shows file as HTML (or, at last, plain text)

Should be good to have a helper application manager to delete the selection done
and avoid further troubles.
Real ASP files aren't HTML, although the server processes the file and sends out
text/html.

In any case, this type of setting logically would cause recursion, since the
Download Manager is then set up to open files of that type in an external
application which is set to open those files in an external application, etc etc
ad nauseum.  The solution is to not allow Firebird to be set as the application
to open that file, but if you have multiple Firebird installs like me, that
becomes less feasible to implement.

Please keep in mind that if the Open With dialog appears, Firebird already CAN'T
open the file, so trying to force it to open the file isn't likely to work out
to well.

tweaking summary, there is some work to allow this to work in situations where
it is just a misconfigured server, but that's a futured bug.

-> ben, this is mostly a protecting users from themeselves issue.
Assignee: blake → bugs
Severity: normal → minor
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Summary: Selecting firebird as helper application for non-standar file type and trying to open a file opens lot of windows → Should not be able to use Firebird for Open With
QA Contact: asa
Summary: Should not be able to use Firebird for Open With → Should not be able to use Firefox for Open With
taking qa
QA Contact: aebrahim
*** Bug 247529 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 249598 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 251175 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Flags: blocking-aviary1.0?
This is effectively a crash and it has a few dups, so we should investigate to
see if anything can be done here.
Flags: blocking-aviary1.0? → blocking-aviary1.0+
Priority: -- → P3
*** Bug 252705 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Not a "blocker"
Flags: blocking-aviary1.0+ → blocking-aviary1.0-
*** Bug 261772 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
(In reply to comment #1)
> 
> In any case, this type of setting logically would cause recursion

That's the problem...

>  The solution is to not allow Firebird to be set as the application
> to open that file.

... but I don't think that is the best solution. Surely the computer can be
saved from blind logic and do something special if the user chooses Firebird. I,
and I guess others who came across this bug, assumed that choosing Firebird
meant: 'I know you don't know how to open this file based on its extension but
try anyway'. Even if it just treated it as ASCII it would be better than nothing.

> Please keep in mind that if the Open With dialog appears, Firebird already CAN'T
> open the file, so trying to force it to open the file isn't likely to work out
> to well.

It's worth noting that IE does make more of an effort if the user selects IE to
open a file that it claims not to understand. In my case the file was XML but
with a wierd extension. IE actually went one better than just opening it as
ASCII and treated it as a valid XML file - a pleasant surprise.

Thanks jamesw.
Personally I think that the OP was right, and that (sadly) comment 1 
though it explains the situation logically seems to miss
the key to this enhancement request.

When Firefox is going through its non-standard file/unknown object
procedure, it is likely to be nearly always best to save to disk
(unless the situation is one that the HTML specification covers by
assuming a default type of text/plain), however when the user sees
the save file dialogue he or she is likely to have a better idea
of what the file will contain than Firefox has thus far been able
to determine using information from the server and the URL 
name/extension.

There should be an option (or possibility) at some stage to say to
Firefox something like "I am the user and I know that this object
called 'timetable.do' is plain text: Please try again assuming 
a mime type of text/plain" or "I am the user and I know that this 
object called 'Silly Organistation.asp' is markup: Please try again 
assuming a mime type of text/html"

I think that this is what people think what happens when you ask
a browser to actually try to open a document in the situation 
(perhaps after sniffing it - but sniffing should not happen by
default for obvious reasons), and the thought that such a 
request leads logically to recursion wouldn't occur to most people
(it certainly didn't occur to me - I see nothing wrong with 'forcing'
Firefox to open a file containing text/html as text/html). 

(OT do you imagine that Photoshop has difficulty opening RAW
bitmaps, or files whose name or type doesn't match contents?)





Seems to me that when Firefox is asked by Windows to open a file, if its default
action for that filetype is to run a program, it should first check that that
program is not Firefox, and if it is then prompt before running the file.

Checking if the file is ASCII (irrespective of its extension) and if so
prompting so the user can choose between displaying as well as Firefox can and
running it might be better, but in the short term the above would at least be a fix.
>Please keep in mind that if the Open With dialog appears, Firebird
>already CAN'T open the file, so trying to force it to open the file
>isn't likely to work out to well.

Not always true. Two common examples:

1) image/jpeg served with Content-Disposition: attachment
 (I saw this in some Phpbb forum with old version of attachment mod)
 Firefox CAN open it, but DOESN'T WANT to open it. User may choose to
 open it with firefox though.

2) bad mime-type. For example jpeg served as application/octet-stream
 (there are many misconfigured servers), but file name is foo.jpg. If
 the user saves it and opens saved file in firefox, it CAN open it,
 but user would like to short this process and not to have to use save
 and open dialogs, and intuitively choose firefox to open that file.

3) Mime-type is for example application/x-shellscript, but Firefox, if really
 "wants", CAN view it as plain text withou problems.

IMHO, there would be good Opera-like option in Open-With dialog: open in Firefox
for this cases (in Opera Open in opera; if Opera really doesn't know it is html
or image, opens it as plain text.)


> IMHO, there would be good Opera-like option in Open-With dialog: open in Firefox
> for this cases (in Opera Open in opera; if Opera really doesn't know it is html
> or image, opens it as plain text.)

+1

It is immeasurably annoying to have to view what you know is a plain text file
in an external application.
This bug, where the user gets a dialog for files that Mozilla/Firefox can open, has been present for a long time and is frustrating.  Please bump the severity up to at least normal.  I see it all the time in Yahoo's web mail whenever I view an email that has a JPEG file attached.  Firefox won't just open the JPEG, instead the user gets that "you have chosen to open ..." dialog with 2 choices "() Open with [Browse...]" and "Save to Disk".  The dialog will even say the file is a JPEG image.

I see several ways to improve things.  In order of preference:

1. Just open the file in the browser.  Skip the dialog.
2. Add a 3rd choice to the "you have chosen to open" dialog:
"() Open with Firefox"
3. Fix bug 259594, so the user can type "firefox" into the the dialog that appears when [Browse...] is clicked.  Currently, the user has to know where firefox is, or manually find firefox.  On Linux, there are several likely places, such as /usr/bin/firefox, /usr/lib/firefox-1.0.6/firefox, /opt/firefox-1.0.7/firefox, /usr/local/firefox/firefox, /usr/local/bin/firefox, and so on, and checking them one by one in the [Browse...] button dialog is tedious for knowledgeable users.  Ignorant users won't know what to do.
This is a dup of bug 215554.  I'm not marking it as a dup because they're filed against different products, and because this one suggests a solution.
I had the same problem with a flash object, I didn't understand why Firefox didn't want to open it (I just wanted to get it fullscreen, I knew it was a working flash file) so I checked "always" and crashed. Maybe Firefox should disable "always" when he sees the program name is "firefox.exe". It wouldn't solve the thing when you save a crossing reference (with two installations of Firefox) but you have to really want it to make this error.

P*Or we could just put a bit of saying that if Firefox is to open itself always, the it should add a special param like "-doNotAskToOpenElseWhere", and just print it in the window or "show the source".
*** Bug 328377 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I'm not really sure of all the surrounding chatter and situations that entail this bug, but, curiously, why not simply *fix* the problem, as opposed to simply attempting to prevent the user from opening something with FireFox?
*** Bug 335814 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 300054 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Assignee: bugs → nobody
QA Contact: ali → download.manager
(In reply to comment #20)
> I'm not really sure of all the surrounding chatter and situations that entail
> this bug, but, curiously, why not simply *fix* the problem, as opposed to
> simply attempting to prevent the user from opening something with FireFox?

That is a perfectly good question, and I am sorry to give a bad answer: Because
no patch has been created and attached to this Report.

Either it not been established what is the correct way to fix this Bug, or to
date, nobody with the skils and/or desire to create a patch has stepped forward
to do it.

However, this bug is marked as NEW, and it would definitely be worth
working on.
Component: Download Manager → File Handling
QA Contact: download.manager → file.handling
This happens to me occasionaly on 3.0b4.
I don't know how to fix the code, but a reasonable UI is to add an explicit "Preview in Firefox" option in the "Opening foo... What should Minefield do with this file" dialog and in Tools > Options > Applications for *every* content type.  Maybe there could be several sub-options: "Preview in Firefox as text", "Preview in Firefox as XML", "Preview in Firefox as image", etc.

For some reason Tools > Options > Applications offers this "Preview in Firefox" choice for Podcast, Video Podcast, and Web feed, but not for other mime types or for file extensions that I really want to view in Firefox like .c files, .diff files, etc.

Such a UI change will be needed to let users switch Firefox 3.1's handling of .ogg files between external programs, plug-ins, and direct loading (bug 448603).  It would also fix bug 419727 where users want to handle .jpeg files externally to Firefox.
Tried to get the headers results in FireBug from the torrent file, but Firefox asked me the program to open it. I have selected the firefox.exe and got infinite tabs opening. The problem is already 9 years old, guys. Fix it, please!
P.S. Firefox 8.0.1
We get 3000 visits per month to http://support.mozilla.org/kb/Firefox+keeps+opening+many+tabs+or+windows which contains a note that the article will no longer be needed when this bug is fixed.
Just to note this is still a current bug with latest Firefox and on Windows 7.  Perhaps the version metadata could be updated accordingly.
The whole problem stems from the lack of generic "Open in Firefox" functionality. I DON'T want to open any app for some files, I just want to see that file as text. 

I get that firefox is bound to media types etc, but isn't it still possible to have the user declare "open this as if it were text/plain" from the "Applications" configuration?

"Open as if text/plain" should be available as fixed mapping in the "Applications" configuration and as one-time option in the "Open in..." popup dialog.
See Also: → 779513
See Also: 779513 → 
(In reply to Mike Connor [:mconnor] from comment #1)
> Severity: normal -> minor

This should be Severity: critical, since it's likely to crash the browser. In a low-resource environment, it might even take down the whole system. Moreover, it's a common issue as evidenced by
* The collection of duplicates accumulated over 15 years.
* The fact that this bug itself is a duplicate of bug 167320, which to date is 16 years old and has also accumulated a mountain of duplicates.
* The fact that users frequently seek help with it: comment 41.

> -> ben, this is mostly a protecting users from themeselves issue.

That's a rather incensing statement, seeing how there's no indication telling Firefox to open a file type it can handle will break everything. Firefox also betrays user expectation by popping up the "What should Firefox do with this file?" prompt even when an action for that file type is set in about:preferences — bug 453455.


(In reply to Jesse Ruderman from comment #17)
> This is a dup of bug 215554.  I'm not marking it as a dup because they're
> filed against different products, and because this one suggests a solution.

In bug 215554, comment 3 it was decided to keep that one was kept separate since it involves associating Firefox with a file type in Windows, then in about:preferences, choosing "Open with default" as the action for that file type.

This is actually a duplicate of bug 167320. Its description proposes the same thing as this. I'd re-dupe everything here and this to it.

All three are filed under the same product and component nowadays.


(In reply to Ben Fowler from comment #12)
> There should be an option (or possibility) at some stage to say to
> Firefox something like "I am the user and I know that this object
> called 'timetable.do' is plain text: Please try again assuming 
> a mime type of text/plain"

(In reply to skierpage from comment #31)
> I don't know how to fix the code, but a reasonable UI is to add an explicit
> "Preview in Firefox" option in the "Opening foo... What should Minefield do
> with this file" dialog

(In reply to Sven Helmberger from comment #44)
> The whole problem stems from the lack of generic "Open in Firefox"
> functionality. I DON'T want to open any app for some files, I just want to
> see that file as text.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/open-in-browser/
Severity: minor → critical
Has Regression Range: --- → irrelevant
Has STR: --- → yes
Keywords: common-issue+
OS: Windows 2000 → Windows
Hardware: x86 → All
See Also: → 215554
See Also: → 167320
16 years, and no fix. I am using Firefox 64, and I still have to work around. I know now, that I can fix this, by setting firefox to allways "preview" pdf files, but this may shrink new users away.
Really, the preview option should be the default setting. And the spawning of infinite tabs should, if used improperly, be halted by firefox and a dialog box informing the user of faulty use and set the option right again.

The reason of clusterf... when you try to solve the bug:

  1. In about:preferences when you switch pdf app behavior from Preview to anything else and then switch back to Preview again it DOESN'T WORK. I read a lot about "it must be Preview" but when user goes and see that it's already at Preview he switches it off and then switches on as resetting should help. But it doesn't.
  2. When switched to Ask question you try to open PDF again and it show dialog window but if you click any choice there you made a mistake again but how can you know that? There is no Preview option there afterall!
  3. When in about:preference there is only option Preview while in dialog window there is only Open in Firefox without preview option user believes that's just the same thing written differently as in the past he always opened standalone pdf files in Firefox and it previewed it!

The ONLY proper way right now is to 1) Switch app preference from Preview to Ask, 2) Try to open PDF and then click Cancel, 3) Go back to app preference and switch back to Preview.

Now to solve this loop where even experienced user just can't figure it out is to either make that app preference switches being Applied without a need of opening PDF and clicking Cancel OR give an actual working Preview option in a dialog window for PDF files.

Hey Ajvar,
Can you still reproduce this issue or should we close it?

Flags: needinfo?(AjvarXX)

(In reply to Andrei Purice from comment #85)

Hey Ajvar,
Can you still reproduce this issue or should we close it?

I will try today on Firefox Portable fresh profile. Usually after I solve it I erase from memory including how that bug appears and how to solve it up until after 2-3 years it suddenly appears again.

Flags: needinfo?(AjvarXX)

(In reply to Andrei Purice from comment #85)

Hey Ajvar,
Can you still reproduce this issue or should we close it?

Ok, I tested it. There is one thing to consider but original bug seems to be resolved. You now do not keep Always checkbox for download pdf links if set "Open with Firefox", right? There is still one inconsistency with option Download, though.

When I open links with pdf Firefox successfully asks and then opens a site link with preview (if set). Good. And with Always Do So checkbox it always does so.

HOWEVER. When I open a link which suggest downloading pdf like "https://mail.ukr.net/attach/get/16242149693384858264/1/_202106202148..pdf"
it asks me what to do acknowledging that it is not the same as just a link with pdf, but when I set it "Download + Always do this checkbox" it now always downloads not just these special download pdf links but ALL links with PDF.

That is easily retractable from user's side though so not a critical bug. I don't know if you can fix it or how but just my observation about this inconsistency.

Marking this as Resolved > Worksforme since the initial issue is resolved.
If anyone still reproduces it either re-open this issue or file a new bug.
For the second issue please file a new bug.

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 3 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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