1282623 - Unable to use Fennec to access local files

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect, P5)

Description

[Botond Ballo [:botond]]

STR:
  1. Open Fennec
  2. Type "file:///" into the URL bar
  3. Navigate to a folder that contains an .apk file
  4. Tap the .apk file

Expected results:
  The application from the .apk is installed

Actual results:
  A bar appears at the bottom, saying "Unable to download file"

This used to work.

Similarly, clicking on a video file used to open the file in Video Player, while now it open again shows "Unable to download file".

Comment 1

[:Margaret Leibovic]

This sounds like a dupe of bug 1271570.

Comment 2

[Nevin Chen(Not active on Bugzilla)]

Works for me. Do you still see this?

Comment 3

[Botond Ballo [:botond]]

It's actually even worse now. Now, when I try to navigate my phone filesystem from Fennec, I get an "Access to the file was denied" page each time.

Comment 4

[Nevin Chen(Not active on Bugzilla)]

Did you grant "storage" permission to Fennec?

Comment 5

[Botond Ballo [:botond]]

I can confirm that giving Fennec the "Storage" permission in Settings -> Apps -> Fennec -> Permissions resolves the problem.

I don't recall Fennec ever asking for that permission. Should it have?

Comment 6

[Jan Henning [:JanH]]

I think this might be because of bug 1193027, so the question is to what extent it might be safe to relax that policy again?

One problem is that before that bug we already had an implementation that attempted to block only "downloads" from the profile directory [1] and apparently for bug 1139027 it was easier to just block local file system downloads completely instead of doing a more targeted fix.


[1] https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/0c24126a81e5#l1.32

Comment 8

[Jan Henning [:JanH]]

I think this might be because of bug 1193027, so the question is to what extent it might be safe to relax that policy again?

One problem is that before that bug we already had an implementation that attempted to block only "downloads" from the profile directory [1] and apparently for bug 1193027 it was easier to just block local file system downloads completely instead of doing a more targeted fix.


[1] https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/0c24126a81e5#l1.32

Comment 9

[Azhar]

This bug isn't a duplicate of Bug 1460853. I cant reopen it so commenting.

The scenario I've mentioned in Bug 1460853 is different than this. Please go through it again and reopen. 

Here the issue is with permissions, but my issue exists on Android Lollipop also which does not have anything to do with runtime permissions.

This same scenario works well with Chrome browser on the very same device.

Comment 10

[Jan Henning [:JanH]]

Things got a little side-tracked, but if you ignore comments 3 to 5 and look at comment 0 instead, you'll notice that just like in your bug report, an attempt to access a local file that cannot be displayed within Firefox itself ended with a snackbar saying "Unable to download file".

On that basis I'd still say that your bug has the same root cause as this one.

Comment 11

[Azhar]

No, still IMO this isn't same as Bug 1460853.

Let me explain:-
  1. Open Fennec
  2. Type "file:///storage/emulated/0/Sample" into the URL bar
  3. Tap the test.txt file
  4. It will display the text file properly without any error.

Had it been same as this one, then it wouldn't have opened the file but would have given the error "Unable to download file"

Only when I try to access the file using window.open("file:///storage/emulated/0/Sample/test.txt") from the html then it throws the error "Unable to download file".

Comment 12

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Re-triaging per https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1473195

Needinfo :susheel if you think this bug should be re-triaged.

Comment 13

[BMO Automation]

We have completed our launch of our new Firefox on Android. The development of the new versions use GitHub for issue tracking. If the bug report still reproduces in a current version of [Firefox on Android nightly](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fenix) an issue can be reported at the [Fenix GitHub project](https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/). If you want to discuss your report please use [Mozilla's chat](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix#Connect_to_Matrix) server https://chat.mozilla.org and join the [#fenix](https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#fenix:mozilla.org) channel.