312041 - "Auto-detect proxy settings" and the autodetected proxy becomes unavailable

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Olivier Mehani [:shtrom]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux ppc; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20051002 Firefox/1.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux ppc; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20051002 Firefox/1.0.7

Setting the automatic detection of Firefox, the browser tries to resolve
wpad.domain.tld until it finds a record pointing to a webserver hosting a
wpad.dat autoconfiguration script. This works.

The problem is with laptops users, who often change location, and then internet
access (e.g. from a WiFi net to another), sometimes not closing Firefox, just
suspending the machine.

When the laptop is woken and gets access to another network, Firefox still holds
the parameters for the old network, and trying to access any website will result
in the "The proxy server you have configured cannot be found" message box.

When this happens _and_ in auto-detect proxy settings mode, Firefox should try
and re-detect the proxy settings (keeping in mind that this might not be the
same network, so the domain.tld might have changed) and, failing that, fallback
to the no-proxy configuration

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start Firefox in a network (say domain1.tld) with
http://wpad.domain1.tld/wpad.dat. Firefox then sets its proxy settings according
to this script.
2. Suspend the machine without exiting Firefox
3. Plug the machine to another network (say domain2.tld)
Actual Results:  
Trying and access any website with Firefox will result in "The proxy server you
have configured cannot be found"

Expected Results:  
Firefox goes through detection of the proxy parameters again:
1. resolves wpad.domain2.tld and, if it exists, get http://wpad.domain2.tld/wpad.dat
2. falls back to direct connection to the internet
3. displays an error message _only_ if all of the above has failed

Comment 1

[u63580]

Looks very much like bug 311900 (from yesterday!)

Comment 2

[Olivier Mehani [:shtrom]]

Indeed very similar, but it differs in the way that in bug 311900, the
autoconfiguration script is known whereas in my case Firefox also has to detect
the new one. I think the two issues can be merged, but I let you decide whether
this bug is a duplicate or not. I'm sorry I didn't find this one when checking
for already filed bugs :-/

Comment 3

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

*** Bug 314159 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Lars Vogel]

Additional comment: The problem also arrise if you use VPN to connect to a network which then requires the usage of a proxy. I believe also in the this case firefox should reload the proxy configuration script. 

Comment 5

[Austin Lund]

I have this same bug on a mac running OSX 10.4.  Perhaps this bug goes across platforms and is not specific to Linux or OSX.  Or perhaps it is a mac only thing?  Does anyone have and info for other platforms.  

Comment 6

[Steve England [:stevee]]

Reporter, do you still see this problem with the latest Firefox 2? If not, can you please close this bug as WORKSFORME. Thanks!

Comment 7

[Mats Palmgren (inactive)]

Does the problem still occur in Firefox 3 ?
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Comment 8

[Olivier Mehani [:shtrom]]

Quite sadly, I no longer have access to the network which lead me to discover this bug...

I reckon this ticket can be closed for now, and possibly reopenned should the issue surface again...