393886 - Atom 1.0 Feed import hangs for feeds without "self" or "alternate" link

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(MailNews Core :: Feed Reader, defect)

Description

[seb]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.6 (20070728)

The Atom 1.0 declares self/alternate links for entries as SHOULD but not as MUST:
* atom:feed elements SHOULD contain one atom:link element with a rel attribute value of "self".  This is the preferred URI for retrieving Atom Feed Documents representing this Atom feed.
* atom:feed elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:link element with a rel attribute value of "alternate" that has the same combination of type and hreflang attribute values.

Thunderbird however is not able to import feeds not having an "self" or "alternate" link for the entries. At http://oval.sf.net/atomtest.xml I'm providing such an example atom feed, that successfully validates at w3c's Feed Validator.

In TB's error console the error message below is shown, which occures when TB tries to execute the line: itemResource = rdf.GetResource(this.mURL);

Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80070057 (NS_ERROR_ILLEGAL_VALUE) [nsIRDFService.GetResource]"  nsresult: "0x80070057 (NS_ERROR_ILLEGAL_VALUE)"  location: "JS frame :: chrome://messenger-newsblog/content/FeedItem.js :: anonymous :: line 226"  data: no]
Source File: chrome://messenger-newsblog/content/FeedItem.js
Line: 226


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Right click on News & Blogs
2. Click Add in the new RSS Subscriptions window
3. Enter the URL http://oval.sf.net/atomtest.xml in the Feed Properties window
4. Click OK in the Feed Properties window

Actual Results:  
The window RSS Subscription shows the message "Downloading feed articles (0 of 2)" and hangs forever.

Expected Results:  
TB creates a new folder and imports the two entries from the atom blog.

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

WFM on Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9a8pre) Gecko/2007091403 Thunderbird/3.0a1pre ID:2007091403

It took some time, but it subscribed.

Comment 2

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Huh, thought I'd commented on this bug. The feed you link to has no apparent relationship to anything in comment 0 - the error you report getting is from FeedItem.js, which deals with <entry>, while the bits of spec you quote deal with <feed>, and your linked feed does have alternate links for both entries. I don't doubt that you got that error, but your analysis of the cause is off, and something seems to be missing from your steps to reproduce (quite possibly something like "subscribe, delete the subscription in some particular way, resubscribe").

Comment 3

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

->incomplete: not reproducible and the test feed is 404; reopen or re-file if you still see this. fwiw, lack of alternate and other optional entry links causing errors was fixed in bug 353987, tbird 2.0.0.2.