195831 - Downloaded file helpers repeated failure

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core Graveyard :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[Waldemar Horwat]

With recent builds (I'm using Netscape 2003022403) I often get an error message
when I type in a URL such as
<ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/nightly/latest-trunk/mozilla-mac-MachO.dmg.gz>
to download a file.  The progress dialog opens, the file gets downloaded, and
then a second dialog opens on top of the progress dialog:

"<filename> could not be opened, because an unknown error occurred.
Sorry about that. Try saving to disk first and then opening the file."

The only choice I have is to click OK, at which point both dialogs disappear. 
Downloading the file again results in the same behavior.  A typical user has no
way out of this -- the dialog says to save the download to disk first, but there
is no obvious way to do it!

As an expert user, I can go to the Preferences dialog, open up the Helper
Applications pane, guess the proper MIME type corresponding to the file I want
to download, change it to choose the proper application to open the file or to
save the file to disk, and then repeat the download process.  I submit, however,
that this is likely beyond the ability of many users.  When the error message
appears, it should then offer to save the download instead of opening it with a
helper application, or bring up the dialog that sets the helper application.

Comment 1

[Brendan Eich [:brendan]]

I doubt blake is gonna hack on this -- samir, can you reassign?

/be

Comment 2

[timeless]

law owns all of those strings.

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

All that error tells us is that an error happens somewhere.  That's not much to
go on, really; network logs may help....

Comment 4

[Waldemar Horwat]

Network logs wouldn't show anything.  There's nothing wrong with the networking
-- the file gets downloaded correctly, but the browser for some unknown reason
fails to launch the helper application to open the file.  The bug is that the
browser doesn't recover gracefully from this situation.  It should, for example,
offer to save the file to disk, choose the helper application, or, at the very
least, clear the preference so that it asks for the helper application the next
time the user downloads this kind of a file.

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

waldemar, we don't show that error dialog if we fail to launch a helper (we
actually fail to show _any_ feedback then).  That error dialog comes up if some
phase of saving the file to disk went awry, or rather if we think it did.  This
could include us getting all the data but then the necko channel being closed
with an error code, eg, in which case we'd get the symptoms you describe....

Comment 6

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Waldemar, can you still reproduce this with a recent build? 

Comment 7

[Pete Hammer]

I hadn't seen this for quite a while (it was fixed some time ago), but it shows
up again in 1.7.2.  The workaround I discovered is to not click on the OK in the
warning until I go move/copy/open the file (which is always OK, desipite the
warning).  Disk image files (.dmg) seem to be the type that trigger this for me.  

Example URL:  http://195.134.134.27/downloads/macdvd/mactheripper201.dmg

The error msg sez the helper app doesn't exist.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Network logs wouldn't show anything.  There's nothing wrong with the networking
> -- the file gets downloaded correctly, but the browser for some unknown reason
> fails to launch the helper application to open the file.  The bug is that the
> browser doesn't recover gracefully from this situation.  It should, for example,
> offer to save the file to disk, choose the helper application, or, at the very
> least, clear the preference so that it asks for the helper application the next
> time the user downloads this kind of a file.

(In reply to comment #5)
> waldemar, we don't show that error dialog if we fail to launch a helper (we
> actually fail to show _any_ feedback then).  That error dialog comes up if some
> phase of saving the file to disk went awry, or rather if we think it did.  This
> could include us getting all the data but then the necko channel being closed
> with an error code, eg, in which case we'd get the symptoms you describe....

not seen anything like this, and doubtful it still exists. If you still see this please reopen. (but I think both Waldemar and Peter are gone)