812112 - Changing URLs in social.manifest.facebook should always lead to error messages, not to infinite loadings

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox Graveyard :: SocialAPI, enhancement)

Description

[Ioana (away)]

Firefox 17.0 beta 5 - Build ID 20121106195758

STR:
1. Enable the Social sidebar in Firefox and log into Facebook.
2. Go to about:config and change a URL in the social.manifest.facebook pref. Make sure you add a URL to a non-existent page, or a string that not a valid URL.
3. Restart Firefox.

When I changed the "sidebarURL" link in social.manifest.facebook, the sidebar displayed the right UI (unable to connect message with "try again" and "close this sidebar" buttons).

When I changed the "origin" link in social.manifest.facebook, the sidebar displayed the loading animation all the time. An error message should be displayed in this case again - if not from the beginning at least after trying to load for 1-2 minutes.

Comment 1

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to Ioana Budnar [QA] from comment #0)
> When I changed the "origin" link in social.manifest.facebook, the sidebar
> displayed the loading animation all the time. An error message should be
> displayed in this case again - if not from the beginning at least after
> trying to load for 1-2 minutes.

As I mentioned in bug 766616, this is not a valid test for that feature - the sidebar loads fine because its URL is valid, but the mozSocial API isn't injected because the sidebar page doesn't match the provider's origin, and so the Facebook content that relies on mozSocial fails. This isn't something that the feature from bug 766616 should catch.

Comment 2

[Ioana (away)]

(In reply to :Gavin Sharp (use [e-mail] for email) from comment #1)
> As I mentioned in bug 766616, this is not a valid test for that feature -
> the sidebar loads fine because its URL is valid, but the mozSocial API isn't
> injected because the sidebar page doesn't match the provider's origin, and
> so the Facebook content that relies on mozSocial fails. This isn't something
> that the feature from bug 766616 should catch.

Gavin, that would mean you can remove the depedency on bug 766616, but you can't say the bug isn't valid as long as users can manually change that link and get to this ugly user experience.

In the case the sidebar page doesn't match the provider's origin, please try to display an error message or any kind of feedback that tells the user to stop waiting for the sidebar info to load. The current behavior lets the user waste his time until he realizes the loading doesn't actually end.

Comment 3

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to Ioana Budnar [QA] from comment #2)
> Gavin, that would mean you can remove the depedency on bug 766616, but you
> can't say the bug isn't valid as long as users can manually change that link
> and get to this ugly user experience.

Users can manually change all sorts of about:config things and break their browser. There's no reason to expect this particular breakage would be common.

> In the case the sidebar page doesn't match the provider's origin, please try
> to display an error message or any kind of feedback that tells the user to
> stop waiting for the sidebar info to load.

The "sidebar loading" progress indication is something that Facebook's script does specifically, it's not Firefox code. That Facebook script breaks because the mozSocial API is not defined in that window, which is the direct result of the about:config tweak that is unlikely to ever actually happen in practice.

It's not useful to try to address this problem because you're not using a valid social provider configuration.