237144 - change in bookmarks.html causes folder to have bookmark type properties

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Luke Nowak]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8

When editing bookmarks.html in your profile, if you change the ID for a 
bookmark and folder to the same ID, Firefox merges the two entries into a 
single folder entry with the contents of the folder entry and the some of the 
properties of the bookmark entry.  Depending on the pair of entries sharing an 
ID, an infinite recursion can be produced in which the folder contains itself.

On a restart of Firefox, the bookmark properties are absent from the entry, 
but the infinite resursion remains.  The bookmark mananger displays the folder 
as having only the original folder's links, but the bookmark menu makes the 
folder contain the links and itself.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Change the id property of a bookmark entry to the same as a folder entry
2. Start Firefox
3. Open Bookmark Manager
4. View properties of the folder
5. View recursion from bookmark menu
6. Restart Firefox
7. View bookmarks from bookmark menu

Actual Results:  
Folder with schedule property tabs and infinite recursion of folder item in 
bookmark menu.

Expected Results:  
Remove the second item with the same ID as it does for two bookmarks with the 
same ID value.

Example change to get both behaviors:

Exerpt from original file
...
    <DT><H3 ID="rdf:#$tWFWx1">Firefox &amp; Mozilla Information</H3>
<DD>Information about Firefox and Mozilla
    <DL><p>
        <DT><A HREF="http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/" 
ID="rdf:#$uWFWx1">Firefox Extensions</A>
<DD>Firefox add-ons and extensions
...

Exerpt from changed file before Firefox start
...
    <DT><H3 ID="rdf:#$tWFWx1">Firefox &amp; Mozilla Information</H3>
<DD>Information about Firefox and Mozilla
    <DL><p>
        <DT><A HREF="http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/" 
ID="rdf:#$tWFWx1">Firefox Extensions</A>
<DD>Firefox add-ons and extensions
...

Exerpt from file after Firefox start and close
...
    <DT><H3 ID="rdf:#$tWFWx1">Firefox Extensions</H3>
<DD>Information about Firefox and Mozilla
    <DL><p>
        <DT><H3 ID="rdf:#$tWFWx1">Firefox Extensions</H3>
<DD>Information about Firefox and Mozilla
...

Comment 1

[Luke Nowak]

Attachment: bookmarks.html file with the change made before starting Firefox

Comment 2

[Luke Nowak]

Attachment: bookmarks.html file after starting Firefox

Comment 3

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

so basically if you hand edit a file to use a non-unique ID, it causes 
problems?  Same thing happens with chrome.rdf, if you're looking at ways to 
screw things up.  This is absolutely something that will only happen with 
deliberate action on the part of a user.

It would be absolutely ridiculous to have error checking code for non-unique 
IDs if the application ensures in all cases that new IDs are unique.  If a user 
is silly enough to hand edit a bookmarks file and deliberately change a random 
unique identifier, then they will have problems.

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs, filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change