336743 - Deleting cache files by hand breaks gmail

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[David Hardy]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.3) Gecko/20060426 Firefox/1.5.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.3) Gecko/20060426 Firefox/1.5.0.3

If you delete your cache files by hand from
\Documents and Settings\<USER>\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\****.default\Cache\
gmail stops working.
I would have expected firefox to realize the cache entries were missing and rebuild its indexes.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Open your gmail account.  
2.  Browse to your cache files, delete all files that do not currently have a handle opened, (the files that you can delete)
3.  Open your gmail account again, notice that you receive some message about a timeout.
4.  Clear your cache through the diolog in Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Cache
5.  Open your gmail account yet again, you should be able to get in this time.
Actual Results:  
See Details and Steps to Reproduce.

Expected Results:  
See Details and Steps to Reproduce.

See Details and Steps to Reproduce.

Comment 1

[Ben Fowler]

Did you stop Firefox remove the files and then start Firefox, or did you remove the files whilst Firefox was running.

If the latter, it has been reported before; and to be honest there is a limit to what an application can do if the user is erasing data from underneath it, but this request seems reasonable.

How much effort would you expect the Firefox devs to put into an issue resolvable by "Well don't do that", how many cycles/how much bloat would you 
assign to this every second that Firefox is running normally just to handle 
this out of the ordinary possibility.

Do you happen to know how Konqueror and Opera react in these circumstances?

If you were erasing cache files for privacy concerns then it would be appropriate to file a bug asking for better instructions for clearing private data and anything else that you want to make this more effective.