215554 - [meta] Infinite browser spawn & file creation loop via circular file associations (mozilla as default application, helper app set to "open with default")

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[James McCoy]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030808

Problem: Mozilla goes into an infinite loop of opening new browser windows and
creating new copies of a file that is trying to be opened. This occurs when
Mozilla is set to automatically open the file with the default application and
Windows has Mozilla associated as the default application for that filetype.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Attempt to open a .cpp file with Mozilla.
2. Specify that Mozilla always use the default application to open .cpp files.
3. Windows "Open file with ..." dialog opens. Specify Mozilla as the default
application.
4. Mozilla will open a new browser window every time it attempts to open the
file and will create a copy of the file, tacking a -1 onto the filename each
time, i.e. foo.cpp -> foo-1.cpp -> foo-1-1.cpp -> etc

This not only uses up system resources by continually opening new browsers, but
it can use up all of the space on the hard drive. This will probably work with
other file extensions, but .cpp is the one that I experienced it with.

Comment 1

[timeless]

this is already reported and is not security sensitive

Comment 2

[Tim]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 167320 ***

Comment 3

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

reopening; the use case with "mozilla as default application" vs "mozilla
explicitly specified as helper app" should be kept separate, imo... the latter
is much easier to fix.

Comment 4

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

"fix" in the sense of "detect and disallow"

Comment 5

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

*** Bug 230772 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 323119 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 218257, which suggests a solution for Firefox (don't allow choosing Firefox as the helper app).

Comment 8

[Michael]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030808
> 
> Problem: Mozilla goes into an infinite loop of opening new browser windows and
> creating new copies of a file that is trying to be opened. This occurs when
> Mozilla is set to automatically open the file with the default application and
> Windows has Mozilla associated as the default application for that filetype.
> 

Confirmed using 3.6 and .swf files. Not a showstopper but very confusing for newbies trying to open files.

Comment 9

[Michael]

Just noticed this was an old bug - sorry. Whatever the issue was then is recurring in 3.6.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Comment 27

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

In the process of migrating remaining bugs to the new severity system, the severity for this bug cannot be automatically determined. Please retriage this bug using the new severity system.

Comment 28

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

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:Gijs, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 29

[:Gijs (out for now; he/him)]

The original issue here has been fixed, and more recent issues have been filed as separate tickets and linked via see also / blocking / depends, so let's make the bug reflect that, I guess.