Closed Bug 251121 Opened 20 years ago Closed 15 years ago

Remaining cases of "File / cannot be found. Please check the location and try again" when loading page

Categories

(Core :: Networking, defect)

x86
Windows XP
defect
Not set
major

Tracking

()

RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: jmg, Unassigned)

References

Details

Attachments

(7 files)

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.1) Gecko/20040707
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.1) Gecko/20040707

The previous bug 123662 ("File / cannot be found. Please check the location and
try again" when loading page) was partially solved or improved by a patch for
Mozilla 1.7. Therefore, developers advised to open this separate new bug to
manage remaining cases from that old bug.

As explained on bug 123662, when trying to load some previously visited
webpages, part of the Mozilla users get a blank page and the alert "File ...
cannot be found. Please check the location and try again". "..." can be "/" for
the main page of a domain, or "/some_page.html", or "/some_directory/", or
"/some_directory/some_page.html", etc.

After the patch of bug 123662, when the bug and its alert appear the momentary
solution is to reload the page, or enter again the url, or click once more on
the link. But the bug appears later, again and again.

Before the patch, reloading, etc. didn't work, and clearing cache was the also
temporary workaround. Naturally those webpages could be seen with other browsers
without this bug (Opera, IE...).

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
This was an elusive bug, but after systematic testing I can reproduce it every
time with Mozilla 1.7.1 (the current version) for Windows XP. I can also
reproduce the bug at the same time with other person's computer using a recently
installed Mozilla 1.7 for Windows XP (Japanese) and the same ADSL connection
(NTT Japan).

The following steps are an example of procedure to reproduce this bug every
time. Of course, there can be more ways that I've not tested.

1. Use Mozilla 1.7 or Mozilla 1.7.1 for Windows (current version, July 2004).
You may use a later version if the bug has not been fixed yet when you read this.

2. Use an ADSL connection with the Mozilla setting "Direct connection to the
Internet" in Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies. Probably the Internet
provider is using a transparent proxy to save bandwidth, etc. (When I change
this setting by entering a different proxy, the bug disappears). I've tested
Telefonica (Spain) and NTT (Japan).

3. Download the page test.html (that I will attach here) to your PC. It includes
a special character (Spanish accented letter) in suitable position, etc.

4. Upload the page test.html by FTP to a Linux server -with the default English
configuration- from your PC. (I've tested and get the bug with two Linux North
American servers and another Linux British server; but I don't get the bug with
a Windows American server and with a Spanish server that seems top be Linux -I'm
not sure-, perhaps with a Spanish character table similar to that of Windows).

5. With Mozilla, see the page http://www.example.com/test.html or
http://www.example.com/test_directory/test.html (change "example.com" with your
domain name). Surely it will load correctly the first time.

6. After viewing the page on Mozilla, upload a second time the page to the
server by FTP. In this way, we are going to have a previously visited page that
has been updated after the last Mozilla visit.

7. After this second FTP, try to view again the page with Mozilla.
Actual Results:  
If your internet connection works in the same way of those tested (ADSL with
transparent proxy), probably you will see a blank page and an alert similar to
one of the following (in your language):

The file /test.html cannot be found. Please check the location and try again.

The file /test_directory/test.html cannot be found. Please check the location
and try again.

Or, if you rename "test.html" to "index.html" or another default homepage name:

The file / cannot be found. Please check the location and try again.

The file /test_directory/ cannot be found. Please check the location and try again.


Expected Results:  
Instead of this alert, we should get the page, not a blank screen. But we need
to reload again to see the page.


After the first time, the bug can be reproduced every time uploading again by
FTP and reloading the "updated" page with Mozilla.
Attachment: Page test.html to test bug 251121 with Mozilla 1.7.1. It includes
a special character (Spanish accented letter). Approximate positions and
minimum lengths are important to reproduce this bug.

This page is a simplification from other webpages that get this bug in Mozilla.
Space for headers, JavaScript functions, etc. is replaced here with commented
points: <!-- ..... --> and the body contents with points: ..... excepting for
an Spanish accented character, etc.

The file length needs to be about 16 KB or more to reproduce the bug with this
page. Also, if we replace the accented á with its html equivalent &aacute; the
bug disappears.
This http.log was recorded during the following steps:

1. Opening Mozilla with a blank page and a cleared cache (we can reproduce the
bug now even with an initially empty cache).

2. Viewing test.html correctly a first time with Mozilla 1.7.1.

3. Getting the bug (the alert and a blank page) when trying to reload the page
on Mozilla after test.html has been "updated" (uploaded again by FTP).

4. Viewing again the page correctly after another reload on Mozilla (this is a
partial improvement from the patch of Mozilla 1.7).

As said already, the bug can be reproduced again and again with more
FTP+reload, but we finished the http.log here (about 61 KB).
At Darin Fisher's request, I've sent my cache for this bug attached to an
email as a compressed file.

In fact, there are included 4 copies of the cache, that were made in the same
testing steps of the http.log file:


1. After opening Mozilla with a blank page and a cleared cache (we can reproduce
the bug now even with an initially empty cache), the cache is:

Cache_1

_CACHE_001_ -> 4 KB
_CACHE_002_ -> 4 KB
_CACHE_003_ -> 4 KB
_CACHE_MAP_ -> 132 KB


2. After viewing test.html correctly a first time with Mozilla 1.7.1, the cache is:

Cache_2

_CACHE_001_ -> 6 KB
_CACHE_002_ -> 8 KB
_CACHE_003_ -> 4 KB
_CACHE_MAP_ -> 132 KB
05C18DDDd01 -> 17 KB


3. After getting the bug (the alert and a blank page) when trying to reload the
page on Mozilla after test.html has been "updated" (uploaded again by FTP), the
cache is:

Cache_3

_CACHE_001_ -> 6 KB
_CACHE_002_ -> 8 KB
_CACHE_003_ -> 4 KB
_CACHE_MAP_ -> 132 KB
05C18DDDd01 -> 0 KB


4. After viewing again the page correctly following another reload on Mozilla
(as said already, this is a partial improvement from the patch of Mozilla 1.7),
the cache is:

Cache_4

_CACHE_001_ -> 6 KB
_CACHE_002_ -> 8 KB
_CACHE_003_ -> 4 KB
_CACHE_MAP_ -> 132 KB
05C18DDDd01 -> 17 KB
Thanks for the information.  It is apparent that a cache file is ending up
empty, and we are apparently not checking for that case carefully enough.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
we are forced to use a stupid content control proxy at work (webMarshal), now
when i choose a bookmark to open a link, in most of the cases it gives the "/
file not found" error first. then if i hit enter from URL bar it goes to the
page. if the url is lets say "http:/www.blah.com/pages/blah.jsp" the the error
message is like this: "/pages/blah.jsp file not found".
Could this be related:

In my Temp directory, I find images and stuff (thumbnails, navigation elements
...) that can only have been placed there by Mozilla. I think those should have
gone to the cache but for some mysterious reason haven't. This was with 1.7.1, I
have not yet encountered it with 1.7.2 on the other machine.
For example, I have a bunch of images sitting there that are called
previous_day-<number>.gif. <number> has reached 39 today. Some of these are the
same picture actually. So Mozilla increases the numbers when it saves them for
whatever reason.
I am also seeing this bug quite frequently on one particular site -
http://www.visitscotland.com

I have been able to reproduce it fairly consistently on Mozilla 1.7. I
overinstalled 1.8a4 today and it fails the same way. This is on Windows 2000. 

My cache settings at 50Mb and I get the error when the cache check is set to
"every time I view the page" or "when the page is out of date". Clearing the
cache rectifies the problem temporarily, but it reappears after a few hours.
Possibly related, but at the same time the error occurs, other errors also occur
on the site including failing to load the larger images, and consistently
failing to load styles. When images fail to load there is no "missing image"
marker. I seem to have started noticing the problem when I moved the cache from
my profile's application data into my own local settings/application data. 

I have attached two attachments. The first shows three screendumps
1. Typing in the URL directly.
2. Clear the cache, visit the homepage successfully then leave page open. Press
refresh and the homepage stays visible but the error appears.
3. View another page on the site and note that styles and the larger images are
failing to load.


The second attachment shows two screendumps:

1. the homepage loading, except for the large graphic on the homepage and 
2. the same page as the third screen dump in the previous document but this time
showing the image having loaded, but again the styles failing to load.

A search turned up the following references, but possibly these refer to the
original instances of this bug.

http://www.brainysmurf.org/archives/000917.html
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=3969
http://www.customize.org/forum/7970
http://www.sodhi.org/index.php/weblog/comments/146/
http://aspyre.net/quanta/archive/2004/03/
http://biffathepieman.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_biffathepieman_archive.html

It would be useful if anyone knows of a good workaround as currently I am having
to purge my cache several times a day.

thanks

For info, I am also seeing the same problem on Firefox PR1.
*** Bug 272063 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
WFM (In reply to comment #1)
> Created an attachment (id=153000) [edit]
> Page test.html to test bug 251121 (see bug description)

WFM with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2)
Gecko/20050602 Firefox/1.0+
Not sure what happened, but I am seeing this now on a site i visit on a regular
basis.

http://www.insecure.org/
home of NMap.

works fine in IE.

So I think this is still an issue.
*** Bug 254293 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 305108 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The file /mail/?view=page&name=js&verd95e3b101468ba57 cannot be found. Check the location and try again.
Assignee: darin → nobody
QA Contact: benc → networking
no reports in a long time, i think it's okj to mark it wfm
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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