1544955 - Downloading ebook from tor.com saves download page's HTML file instead of the .epub file

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(GeckoView :: General, defect, P1)

Description

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

This bug was originally filed in Fenix's issue tracker:
https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/1657

Steps to reproduce

1. Visit https://ebookclub.tor.com/ in Fenix
2. provide an email address to prove you've signed up (sorry, the download's behind an account. Maybe other downloads are similarly affected, I don't know.)
3. Download the .epub edition of Cory Doctorow's "Walkaway"

Expected behavior

The download completes properly and is about 1.36MB in size. (This is what happens when I do this with Firefox for Android Beta)

Actual behavior

The download "completes" at 25.79KB, and is an invalid file that is actually the HTML of the website's download page.

Comment 1

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Is this related to Fennec PDF download bug 1484937 or bug 1527552? chutten says the .epub file download works works correctly in Fennec 67 Beta.

Comment 2

[Chris H-C :chutten]

I don't think it is related as those seem to be file extension/content-type issues. I like @pocmo's suggestion that it might be due to necessary cookies not being present to tell tor.com that they have verified that I've signed up for the newsletter and thus am permitted the download. It would then make sense that they'd redirect the download URL to the landing page instead, which would explain why I get the HTML instead of the ebook.

Comment 3

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

I emailed [e-mail] with details of the bug.

Comment 4

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Chris H-C :chutten from comment #2)

I like @pocmo's suggestion that it might be due to necessary cookies not being present to tell tor.com that they have verified that I've signed up for the newsletter and thus am permitted the download.

That is GV bug 1476364, which we WONTFIX'd because:

Fenix MVP will integrate with the Android download manager, but without user cookies. After MVP, Fenix can use the streaming download API (bug 1522705) to create its own download manager.

Sebastian, do we need to revisit that WONTFIX decision for the cookie API? Or is the right solution still for Fenix to build its own download manager using GV's streaming download API (bug 1522705)? In that case, mozilla-mobile/fenix#1657 would be deferred until Fenix post-MVP.

Comment 5

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

We should fix this for Fenix MVP.

Comment 6

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Fenix is using the Android download manager instead of Gecko and the Android download manager doesn't have the user cookies (as suggested in bug 1476364).

James thinks we should WONTFIX this bug and Fenix should use Gecko's downloading streaming API.