2010753 - NS_BINDING_ABORT

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Report Broken Site, defect)

Description

[Cara Vincent]

HTTP cache returns zero-byte JS entries causing NS_BINDING_ABORTED and script load failure

Firefox aborts same-origin JavaScript requests (NS_BINDING_ABORTED) due to zero-byte cached script entries. This causes modern JS applications to fail silently (blank UI / missing functionality). Disabling both disk and memory cache is the only reliable workaround.

Issue persists across restarts and manual cache deletion and is reintroduced by Firefox Sync.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start Firefox with an existing synced profile
2. Ensure default cache settings: browser.cache.disk.enable = true and browser.cache.memory.enable = true
3. Load https://chatgpt.com
4. In DevTools Network tab observe JavaScript requests from chatgpt.com

Results
Many same-origin JavaScript requests are aborted with NS_BINDING_ABORTED
Network tab shows affected script resources with Size = 0 B
UI partially or fully fails to load (e.g. blank login modal)
Reloading does not fix the issue
Clearing site data does not fix the issue
Deleting cache directories (cache2, startupCache) does not fix the issue
Re-enabling cache immediately reproduces the failure

Expected Results
JavaScript resources load fully with non-zero size
No NS_BINDING_ABORTED errors for same-origin scripts
Application initializes correctly

Workaround
Disabling both cache layers resolves the issue immediately and reliably:

browser.cache.disk.enable = false
browser.cache.memory.enable = false

With both disabled:
Scripts load correctly
No NS_BINDING_ABORTED
Application works as expected

Re-enabling either cache layer causes the failure to return.

Additional Notes / Observations

• Issue does not occur in a brand-new Firefox profile
• Issue is reintroduced immediately after Firefox Sync
• Suggests corrupted or invalid HTTP cache metadata or cache reuse logic restored via Sync
• Network requests are same-origin (chatgpt.com), type = script
• Appears to be a cache index / reuse bug rather than content corruption
• Neither Chromium-based browsers nor Waterfox exhibit this behavior

Regression?
Unknown. Possibly related to recent Firefox cache backend changes or Sync-restored cache state.

Impact

• Breaks modern JS applications that rely on dynamic script loading
• Failure mode is silent and difficult to diagnose
• Affects authenticated and unauthenticated flows
• Forces users to disable cache globally as a workaround

Comment 1

[Cara Vincent]

This appears to have been temporarily mitigated and not related to cache issues: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2010712