1726902 - Reloading a PDF after a 404 error doesn't show the PDF open dialog

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect, P3)

Description

[KKME]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

Opening PDF's set to always ask.
Surf to a PDF webpage that doesn't exist, resulting in a 404 error.
PDF is made available at the above URL.
Refresh the page.

Actual results:

The open dialog doesn't have the top line specifying 'Open with Firefox' that would have come up if the PDF had existed in step 2

Expected results:

The 3 option PDF open dialog should appear instead of the standard open dialog.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::PDF Viewer' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Clara Guerrero ( Need Info Brindusa Tot Please)]

Hi,

Can you provide a link to test this and try to replicate on my end?
Best,
Clara

Comment 3

[KKME]

I don't know that it would be that easy to coordinate. The PDF needs to be uploaded or renamed to the filename being requested by Firefox in step 3 while the 404 page is showing so that it exists when the page is refreshed. I think it would be easier to use a free hosting service where you would be able to upload or rename the PDF file on demand as you're testing. Any service that returns a proper 404 for a non-existent file should work. Running a web server (like nginx) on a local machine would work too.

Comment 4

[Clara Guerrero ( Need Info Brindusa Tot Please)]

I tried renaming a pdf file from google drive, but did not get the 404 error.
Does this issue occur in the latest nightly version of firefox? Here is a link from where you can download it: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/
Best,
Clara

Comment 5

[KKME]

Yes, the bug still occurs in Nightly.

Getting a 404 error is critical to reproducing the bug. I have a link that might work, but it will require a getting the timing correct and you'll probably only have one shot at it.

Click here http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/view_auth.pl?Application_id=1309127&File_number=BLFTB-20090416AMF&Callsign=KYMV-FM2&Facility=166359 and then as quickly as you can click on the Get Authorization link in the middle of the page. Hopefully you'll get a Not Found error. If you don't it won't work. If you do get the Not Found then wait a minute or so and refresh the page. Don't close the page or navigate away. You should then see the standard file download dialog instead of the PDF dialog with "Open with Firefox" as the top menu choice.

Comment 6

[Clara Guerrero ( Need Info Brindusa Tot Please)]

Unfortunately I didn't get the not found error, I saw a 2 -page pdf document.
Could you please answer the following questions in order to further investigate this issue?
1- Does this issue happen with a new profile? Here is a link on how to create a new profile: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles
2- Are you using add-ons? If so could you please list them? (you can try the issue while in Safe Mode. You can find helpful info here : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode .)
Can you attach your about:support information?
Best,
Clara

Comment 7

[KKME]

I confirmed the bug using a fresh OS install and a fresh install of Nightly. The only change I made to the defaults was to change the action when a PDF is encountered to always ask. Doesn't get more vanilla than that. :)

I have a way to show the bug but it will take a little time. Load this page:

https://www.angelfire.com/ca3/tomsnyder/bugzilla.pdf

You will get a 404 error. Just leave the tab open and post back that you got it. I will put the file there and let you know. Then you'll need to refresh the page and look at the dialog. The PDF itself shows the two different dialogs that come up.

Comment 8

[:Gijs (he/him)]

This is because of the comparison at https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/cc869830d5cb2482a123ed3a63782bfd5dcf74ec/toolkit/mozapps/downloads/HelperAppDlg.jsm#1303-1315 , which avoids showing the option if you open the dialog from pdfjs itself.

We're likely to re-evaluate some of the PDFjs UI "soon" in bug 1719895, bug 1719892 and friends, which might make fixing this easier. Given how much of an edge-case this is, it's unlikely we'll address this before those changes.