288804 - cache doesn't honor the 'when out of date' preference settings, download even if page not expired (getting 304 status)

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: Networking: HTTP, defect)

Description

[quartz12h]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050319
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050319

The cache doesn't honor the 'when out of date' preference settings, it download
even if page not expired (getting 304 status).

Lookking closely at the headers (live http headers extension), you can see the
request was made, even if the cache setting was set to hit the server only if
expired.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.install live http header 0.10 (or use your favorite sniffer, like ethereal)
2.set the cache sizes to 100 megs to be sure.
3.ensure both disk and memory cache are on (type url about:config and
verify/edit all browser.cache.* settings)
4.set the cache setting to 'when the page is out of date'.

5.surf a web site page, then reload it. Track an object with live http headers
(or sniffer), like a .gif that is setting the 'Expire:' header far enough in the
future.

Actual Results:  
When you reload the page, observe that .gif being requested to the server again.


Expected Results:  
The browser was not supposed to hit the server because the object is not expired.
Hence, the page should have loaded much faster.

There are no other headers that indicate that the content should not be cached.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Please attach an HTTP log (see
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/http/http-debugging.html ).

And please make sure this is happening in a current trunk build...

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
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Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 3

[Darin Fisher]

This is working as designed.  Reload is meant to do an end-to-end validation of
the cached contents of the page.  If you just click enter in the URL bar,
however, you should observe that it reloads the page from the cache.  Marking
INVALID.