1759551 - IRS.gov "Access Denied You don't have permission to access" error starting in v100?

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: DOM: Forms, defect)

Description

[Eli Segev]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:98.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/98.0

Steps to reproduce:

The IRS website for refund information is not working on Firefox on Windows 11:

https://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof/lang/en/irfofgetstatus.jsp
Fill up the information on the page and submit and get an error message. On the other hand the website does work on Safari on my iPhone.

Actual results:

Error

Expected results:

Get a reply

Comment 1

[Andre Klapper]

Unfortunately this report is not very useful because it does not describe the problem well. If you have time and can still reproduce the situation or problem, please read https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html and add a more useful description to this report, including clear and complete steps to reproduce (step by step) as a list which leaves no room for interpretation. If there is some error message, please provide the error message.

Comment 2

[Eli Segev]

1. Go to https://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof/lang/en/irfofgetstatus.jsp
2. Input the required information and submit
3. Get an error message:
   Access Denied
   You don't have permission to access "http://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof/IRServlet?" on this server.

Reference #18.a6272417.1647349713.fc2d81c

When using this website with on Safari on an iPhone, it works

Comment 3

[Negritas Sergiu, Desktop QA]

Hello! I have tried to reproduce the issue with firefox 101.0a1(2022-04-20) and 100.0b8 on Ubuntu 20.04 with US VPN and I get the same error. Marking this issue as NEW and setting a component in order for our developers to look more into it.

If it's not the right component please feel free to change it to an appropriate one.

On another note firefox 99.0.1 is unaffected by this issue.

Thank you!

Comment 4

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen)]

Could be a version 100 UA sniffing issue. Needinfoing cpeterson who might be able to test from a U.S. perspective.

Comment 5

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

(In reply to Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen) from comment #4)

Could be a version 100 UA sniffing issue. Needinfoing cpeterson who might be able to test from a U.S. perspective.

I don't think this is a version 100 UA problem. I could reproduce the "Access Denied" error in Beta 101 and Nightly 102, but Firefox 100 release worked for me.

Unfortunately, all Firefox (including ESR 91.9 and Nightly 99) and Chrome versions now return the same error, so I've either crashed the IRS backend or my IP address has been blocked because I entered too many fake SSNs.

I didn't need to enter my real SSN to test. I just entered a fake "123-12-1234" SSN and "$1234" refund amount on the page:

https://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof/lang/en/irfofgetstatus.jsp

Comment 6

[Mirko Brodesser (:mbrodesser) -- not reading bugmails currently]

Couldn't reproduce the issue with Nightly version 102 with a German IP address. After submitting the form, the page was forwarded to https://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof/lang/en/irfofresults.jsp containing:

Refund Status Results
[Print your Refund Results for your records.] [Take the survey.]
 

We cannot provide any information about your refund.
[...]

Sergiu: can you please check again if the issue is still reproducible?

Comment 7

[Negritas Sergiu, Desktop QA]

Hello Mirko! Sorry for the long reply time I have tried to reproduce the issue with latest firefox Nightly on Ubuntu 22.04. The issue is not reproducing anymore on 102.0a1(2022-05-11), 101.0b5 and 100.0

Comment 8

[Mirko Brodesser (:mbrodesser) -- not reading bugmails currently]

Negritas: thanks for having tried to reproduce the issue.

Reporter: please reopen the issue, if it still occurs for you.