270584 - Having a proxy .pac file identified and specifying an external handler loads the .pac file in the external handler

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[Jeremy Hurst]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; INTRANETUSER)
Build Identifier: 

When you have the user preference "network.protocol-handler.external.http" set 
to true and when you have the "network.proxy.autoconfig_url" set to a URL, when 
you click on a link within a mail message, a Mozilla Browser window appears, 
then your external handler starts and is instructed to download the proxy auto 
config file. Your Mozilla Browser also remains on screen.

It should not even appear.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Configure "network.proxy.autoconfig_url" with a URL
2. Set "network.protocol-handler.external.http" to true
3. Click on a link within a mail message

Actual Results:  
The external handler is loaded, after Mozilla Browser has already started 
(which it shouldn't), and then you're prompted to download the proxy auto 
config file.

Expected Results:  
You should be sent to the external URL via the external handler. Mozilla 
Browser should not load nor should you be redirected to the proxy auto config 
file.

Comment 1

[Jeremy Hurst]

Oops, meant to say "network.protocol-handler.external.http"

Comment 2

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Sounds like a mailnews bug, but maybe it's a content dispatch issue?

Comment 3

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

sounds like things are mostly working as designed, actually... since mozilla
tries to load the file using HTTP, but the internal HTTP handler was disabled ->
we invoke the external one... maybe we should fail pac loads immediately if the
protocol handler is nsIExternalProtocolHandler

Comment 4

[Jeremy Hurst]

Damn it, I realised I made another typo... I mean:

network.protocol-handler.expose.http

A proxy pac file tells the web-browser how to access the website, eg, which 
proxy server to go through. It hasn't got anything to do with whether the web-
browser is to handle http or not. If Mozilla is told not to look after http, it 
shouldn't. It also should replace the URL that you've asked to go to with the 
pac URL. This doesn't make sense.

Comment 5

[Jeremy Hurst]

ARGH! I hate day time. Too many errors occur when there's daylight. What the 
last post should say is that Mozilla SHOULDN'T replace the URL with that of the 
pac file. In fact, it shouldn't even bother referring to a pac file because 
Mozilla has been told to pass-over control of the http protocol to another 
system.

Comment 6

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

before even attempting to load the url you asked for, mozilla tries to download
the PAC file... it attempts to download it using the HTTP protocol handler. but
you disabled it. so it uses the external protocol handler instead. this means
loading the PAC file fails... I'm not sure why you don't get two dialogs (one
for pac, one for the url you asked for)

Comment 7

[Andrew Schultz]

==> http

Comment 8

[benc]

It sounds like everything does what it should from a module-to-module basis...

Only Darin can decide...