167037 - External viewers complain about "Incorrect file format" when opening TIFF images

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core Graveyard :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[Luigi Salimbeni]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020530
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020530

When I follow a link to a TIFF image, to be displayed with an external
application, the application complains about an "Incorrect file format"; when I
follow the same link using <Ctrl> (thus opening a new tab) the image is
correctly displayed. 
The problem arises on Linux platforms  (  Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686;
en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020607  ) when only one instance of the browser is
running. If you open a second Mozilla window (not a tab) the image is correctly
displayed on that window but not on the first. 
Trying to save the file instead of opening it gives a zero-length file.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
0. Open one (and only one) instance of Mozilla
1. Go to URL http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/barotrop.shtml
2. Click on the first link to an image
3. Select "Open using /usr/bin/gimp" on the following dialog (any application
will give the same results)
4. Click OK

Actual Results:  
The application displays the dialog "TIFF Can't open /tmp/QWAA00-1.TIF", then
"Cannot read TIFF header"

Expected Results:  
It should have correctly handed the file to the application.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Please retest with 1.1; 1.0 is very old...  I cannot reproduce the problem with
a current Linux build.

Comment 2

[Luigi Salimbeni]

Tested with Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020827
and with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826

Same as before, except this time Mozilla itself raises the warning:
"/tmp/7d86c5u.TIF could not be saved, because the source file could not be read.
Try again later, or contact the server administrator."

As usual, a second instance of Mozilla opens the image.

Comment 3

[Andrew Hagen]

Dupe.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 160261 ***

Comment 4

[Jason Summers]

I'm pretty sure this is really a duplicate of bug 153454 (via bug 153451 and/or
bug 93817), not bug 160261.

Comment 5

[Luigi Salimbeni]

I agree with Jason Summers: this bug is probably a duplicate of 153454. The
problem is that that bug is marked as FIXED but the problem still exists with
version 1.2b.  Even worse: with version 1.2b the workaround of opening a second
window to correctly handle the tiff file doesn't work any more. 
I promise: I will never use TIFF files in my pages nor I will ask to display
them in a Mozilla window. But leave me at least the possibility of handling them
in some way!!!

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Luigi, if this is still present in 1.2b, this is not a dup... please try one
thing first: on Windows, delete compreg.dat and restart Mozilla.  Then list the
exact problem you see on the URL in the url field (or just say if the issue is
exactly as reported in comment 0 or comment 2).  For what it's worth, the steps
for comment 0 work for me with linux trunk build 2002-11-01-21.  The image opens
fine in ee or gimp...  (I know, that's what I said in comment 1 as well).

Comment 7

[Luigi Salimbeni]

On Windows: deleting compreg.dat completely solves the problem. Just installing
v.1.2b is not enough.
On Linux : installing v. 1.2b from scratch also fixes the bug.