141093 - PAC: will not load file or ftp URLs

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[Shane Bearham]

Since update to 1.0rc1 Auto proxy config appears to no longer work as all
connections are now direct instead of via proxies....
From what I can tell no proxy.pac file is loaded from the ftp server.
(I'm assuming proxyconf??)
I have tried  file://ftp/proxy.pac ftp://ftp/proxy.pac
file://ftp.xtremetech.com.au/proxy.pac all with no joy 
(all worked in 0.9.9 fine)
I have also changed HTTP ver from 1.1 to 1.0 in HTTP Networking with no joy
Finally I placed a "proxyconf" into .mozilla/default/xxxxxx/ & started Mozilla
but still no joy
Extract from prefs.js ::: (looks ok to me)
prefs.js:user_pref("network.proxy.autoconfig_url", "ftp://ftp/proxy.pac");

Manual config works fine

Comment 1

[Shane Bearham]

FYI
This is a total clean install, no "old" configs where used 
this was done to address performance issues, which it has :)

Comment 2

[Christopher Wanko]

Does file://c:/foo/bar.pac work?

Comment 3

[timeless]

note that it should be file:///c:/foo/bar.pac

Comment 4

[Shane Bearham]

I hate to sound like a smart **** but did you actually read the bug report????
(I get annoyed when ppl don't read things b4 jumping!!!!)
It does say L I N U X not damn Windoze !!!!!!
So plz explain "c:" in Linux ???????

I used to be able to specify EITHER file://..... OR ftp://... prior to 1.0rc1
both USED to work and NEITHER do as of 1.0rc1
I'm now up to 1.0 release.. and it still does NOT work AT ALL

Which BTW also works both ways in Netscape X.XX & Mozilla release <=0.9.9
I know "file://.." should refer to a local files system but as it USED to work
EITHER way I reported as such.

PS .... RTBR

Comment 5

[timeless]

i focussed on the comments especially comment 2. I'm bugmail driven so i was 
stepping in to correct an errant suggestion. (yes i know there was a 10 day 
lag, i was gone for 3 weeks)

Comment 6

[benc]

timeless' example, although using a windows path, is using the correct file URL
format, and you are not.

file://ftp/proxy.pac should be file:///ftp/proxy.pac 

What you have provided is treated as:

file:///proxy.pac, which points to "/proxy.pac" on your local system.

(two slashes should be three). In the future, you should ask for someone's
clarification if you don't know what they meant.

Comment 7

[benc]

Have you gotten this to work?
I don't think we have received similar complaints.

If you take the URL in your pref and paste it into the URL bar, you should get
an error about downloading a file:

application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig

Comment 8

[Shane Bearham]

Sorry for the lack of updates as I fudged a workaround by using Firewall to
capture and redirect desired connections...

I have upgraded to Moz 1.1
(Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i586; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826)
Initially the proxy autoconfig did not work...

I tried as suggested, pasting the location for proxy.pac into URL Bar, I did get
an error for 'file://ftp/proxy.pac', but the config file did load for
'ftp://ftp/proxy.pac'.  After this I went back into preferences and again tried
to load the autoconfig again and watched the ftp server, and this time it
worked..!!!
*grin*

Comment 9

[benc]

RESOLVED/WFM:
for file, you need three slashes before the path, it's a file:/// URL quirk that
isn't worth explaining.

as for FTP, I have seen problems where PAC seems to get cached. My teammate QA's
cache, so sometimes it confuses me as well.

If you could VERIFY this bug, that would be great!

Comment 10

[Shane Bearham]

Well 'file:///ftp/proxy.pac' errored as expected but the path is correct at least.
It's nice to see after all these years that 'file:' actually only works with
local filesystem as I would've expected.

As with the caching problem I can't see it !!
Every restart of Moz now shows access to the server(proxy.pac).
Every single click on reload (preferences|advanced|proxies) actually showed up
in the ftp logs. Though in all honesty I can't find where it's put now to check
timestamp, as it used to be proxyconf.
I've even changed pref's to 'direct', quit & restarted, back into pref's,
changed to auto config & for every hit of reload, showed access on the server.
Of course I'm assuming this is what you're querying???