228089 - startup page redirects too quickly

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[Paul Rubin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

I download and install mozilla 1.5.  The first time I launch it after
installation, it comes up showing a screen that says something like "your
version of mozilla is more than 4 weeks old, please upgrade".  I can't tell what
else it says because that screen goes away in about 3 seconds and the browser
points to a mozilla.org page.  The message is pretty stupid anyway, since I just
downloaded the browser so it must be current.  Running my existing Mozilla 1.2.1
instance and then running 1.5 again brings up the same "your version is > 4
weeks old" screen.  But that screen is seen only the first time I run 1.5 after
installation or after running 1.2.1.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Mozilla 1.5 or run an older version for a moment
2. Start up 1.5
3.

Actual Results:  
"Your version of mozilla is > 4 weeks old" screen appears and disappears.

Expected Results:  
Either that screen should not be shown, or else it should stay displayed until
the user clicks on a link or button to make it go away.  It should not disappear
all by itself.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Sounds like a mozilla.org bug....

Comment 2

[Robert Mohr]

Changing fields.  Can't confirm--you have a slow connection reporter?

Comment 3

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Gerv owns that page.

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

The redirect is supposed to be fast - 1.5 doesn't have a special start page set,
so we have to do a redirect from the standard start page. It happens as fast as
we can make it happen, I'm afraid.

Gerv

Comment 5

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Actually, that wasn't quite true, because it was being done at the javascript
level from within that page after it loaded (telling the browser to redirect).

It's now doing it as a server-side redirect directly from Apache.  So now the
original start page will never even get served if the user is accessing from 1.4
or 1.5.

    RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla/5.0.\(.*;.rv:1\.4\).Gecko
    RewriteRule ^/start/$ /start/1.4/ [R]

    RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla/5.0.\(.*;.rv:1\.5\).Gecko
    RewriteRule ^/start/$ /start/1.5/ [R]

Comment 6

[Daniel Wang]

Perfect. thx, dave :-)

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Nice :-) I'll remove the JS-based redirect. 

We may want such a redirect for 1.6 when it comes out. Dave: is this redirect
.htaccess-based, and so available for editing from a CVS checkout of the
webtree? Or would you have to add it?

Gerv

Comment 8

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

right now I'd have to add it.  It *could* be done from .htaccess however.  We
may have to fiddle with the config to get it to allow you to, but no reason we
can't do that.  Why don't you try that for the 1.6 one, take one of those
rulesets above, modify it for 1.6 and drop it in the .htaccess file, and we'll
see what we have to do to make it work.  Once it does, we can take the 1.4 and
1.5 out of the httpd.conf and put them in the .htaccess.