281120 - a http 301-redirection can never be updated

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect)

Description

[Hauke Pribnow]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de-AT; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de-AT; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

When a website sends a 301 to Mozilla the redirected and the redirecting page
will be stored (in a database, I'd assume). Even when the link is changed,
Mozilla _never_ updates the redirection entry.
I had this problem because a server was misconfigured and it lead me to the
wrong page... now I can get there only with the following trick:
I want to visit the page http://abc.def/someContent/. So I type the link into
the address bar. Because this site has sent me once a wrong 301-redirection
before, I'll get to the website http://xyz.jkl/someContent/. To get back, I have
to replace _only_ the "xyz.jkl" with the "abc.def". (Would I retype the whole
URL, it would lead me again to the site "xyz.jkl"...)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set up a http test server with a page that leads you to another site by
sending a 301.
2. Go with Mozilla to the URL where you have stored the page.
3. Now replace this page with something else...
4. ...and try to get there with Mozilla now!
Actual Results:  
Mozilla will still redirect me to the wrong site.

Expected Results:  
There should be a way to delete or update such 301-entries. Also such entries
can be outdated...

Comment 1

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Attachment: HTML for recreation test

Test case is slightly changed from reporter's one.
 - IFRAME is hard coded in HTML source.
 - Only SRC attribute value(URL) is changed by JavaScript.

Test procedure.
 (1) Enable Cache
 (2) "Shift+Reload" (at least 2 times in order to cache google.com & yahoo.com)

 (3) Severa times of "Reload" -> IFRAME content is not refreshed

Comment 2

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Sorry.
Above atachemnt is for other bug(Bug 279048. 302 redirect case).
Please ignore above.

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

alles-muell, get HTTP header log using Live HTTP Headers extention.
See http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/index.html

After problem is recreated and HTTP headers are gotten, try Shift+Reload.
Will "Shift+Reload" resolve problem?
 

Comment 4

[Hauke Pribnow]

> get HTTP header log using Live HTTP Headers extention.
Done. The list on the tab "Generator" shows me:
#request# GET http://abc.def/someContent/
#request# GET http://xyz.jkl/someContent/

After that I get a connection refused error in Mozilla...

> Will "Shift+Reload" resolve problem?
Unfortunately not. "The link could not be saved. The web page might have been
removed or had its name changed."

Comment 5

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Closing as WORKSFORME according to comment #4. 

Comment 6

[Hauke Pribnow]

Hm... I think, I haven't described my problem detailed enough. So I'll start
again from scratch.

I had a misconfigured websever (let's call it "http://misconf.web.com/"). There
was a directory that contained a page "index.php". To reach the page I typed
"http://misconf.web.com/folder/" into the address bar. Because the server was
misconfigured, the page sent a 301 "Moved Permanently" which lead me to another
webserver (let's assume it lead me to
"http://redirection.target.com/folder/blah.php"), instead of leading me to
"http://misconf.web.com/folder/blah.php".

Now I re-configured the web server but Mozilla still keeps thinking that the 301
is permanently. So when I type "http://misconf.web.com/folder/" it still leads
me to "http://redirection.target.com/folder/blah.php". To actually reach my
target with the redirection, I have to replace the "redirection.target.com" with
"misconf.web.com" and remove the "blah.php" - rewriting the whole line doesn't
work. (It leads me again to the wrong page.)

I also looked into network logs and so I know that Mozilla gets a new 301 "Moved
Permanently" after I did the trick I mentioned above, but after a restart of the
program, the new 301 link seems to have disappeared from Mozilla's memory.

Even after I cleared the cache, the problem still exists at my side.

Comment 7

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

You'd better to see what is happening by yourself first.
Install Live HTTP Headers extention and see HTTP Header log.
  http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/index.html
To see Mozilla's cache data, enter about:cache in URL bar.
See "about:about" for more about: options.

Comment 8

[Hauke Pribnow]

I've installed the http extensions and typed "http://misconf.web.com/folder"
into my address bar. But Mozilla doesn't send any headers to misconf.web.com...
the first outgoing header is send to redirection.target.com.

Comment 9

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #8)
> I've installed the http extensions and typed "http://misconf.web.com/folder"
> into my address bar. But Mozilla doesn't send any headers to misconf.web.com...
> the first outgoing header is send to redirection.target.com.
Since 301 means "Moved Permanently", Mozilla probably holds old(misconfigured)
redirect information as W3C Standard says.
  See http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html#sec10.3.2
Try Shift+"Reload"(CTRL+SHIFT+R) first.
If failed, close all tabs for the site, clear cache(Profile/Advanced/Cache),
enter about:cache in URL bar(address bar), then see both memory cache & disk
cache entries and check whether cache entries related to your URLs are exist or not.
If no related cache entries found, try to access your site with Live HTTP
Headers active.
Then see HTTP Headers log & about:cache entries again(close old about:cache tabs
before chack again).  

Comment 10

[Hauke Pribnow]

Thank you for your help! I've been able to solve the problem with the steps you
mentioned above.