308047 - Automatic page refresh makes you lose the page (meta refresh)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[kosta_kp]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4

See the "Steps to Reproduce."

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to a page that regularly refreshes itself (ex. http://nytimes.com, which
uses <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="900">).
2. Disconnect from the Internet.
3. Wait for the refresh timer (on NYTimes, it's 90 seconds).


Actual Results:  
The browser tries to reload the page. Because it's disconnected, it fails. It
then displays the "Problem loading page" screen, instead of the unrefreshed page.
This means that you lose the ability to read that page unless you're always online.

Expected Results:  
In just this case, it should give some sort of message (maybe like the dialog
box in the 1.0.x versions), saying that the page couldn't be loaded.
Or, better yet, show a notification in the yellow message bar at the top.
This way, you'll still be able to read the old version of the page, even if
you're not online.

Comment 1

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

the pref 
browser.xul.error_pages.enabled false
probably brings the old dialogs back

Comment 2

[kosta_kp]

(In reply to comment #1)
> the pref 
> browser.xul.error_pages.enabled false
> probably brings the old dialogs back

The old dialogs were generally annoying, and the error pages are better - except
in this case (and maybe some others).

Comment 3

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Can't you then just click back to get back to the original page?

Comment 4

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

File > Work Offline before disconnecting WFM.

Comment 5

[Sergio]

You can't hit the Back button because it's disabled, it doesn't have any history.
It's quite an annoying bug for any modem user.

I guess it's the best if it can be made just to ignore the auto refresh requests
of web pages if internet connection is not available.

Comment 6

[OstGote!]

As a workaround see RefreshBlocker - Firefox extension
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&id=992

Comment 7

[OstGote!]

*** Bug 321126 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[lars noodén]

I'd rather just be able to back up from the inane error message to see the original content.  Otherwise, couldn't the 'workoffline' status get triggered automatically when the modem is disconnected?  

Comment 9

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

(In reply to comment #8)
> Otherwise, couldn't the 'workoffline' status get triggered
> automatically when the modem is disconnected?

That would be bug 76111.

Comment 10

[edpeur]

A great fix to this bug would be to only replace the old page once all the new one is completely loaded. This way we prevent this bug and also prevent the disgusting slow http reload that blocks any interaction and removes the old content while the new one reloads.

Comment 11

[Uwe Voigt]

In relation to this bug: If I have a page available offline (in cache) and the online version is not available (maybe it has been removed) and I try to load it, then the offline version is not longer accessible. This is one 'feature' the MSIE6 provides a bit better.

Comment 12

[Gabriel Sjoberg]

Any fix for this bug will depend on bug 76111.  Moving to Core/Networking.

Comment 13

[edpeur]

(In reply to comment #12)
> Any fix for this bug will depend on bug 76111.  Moving to Core/Networking.

I don't see why my proposed way to fix it would depend on auto detecting online/offline status (bug 76111)