403408 - Non-existent favicon.ico requested twice in a row in short time

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[The Reporter]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9

Firefox requests twice in a row in short time a favicon.ico file that does not exist. The server returns "HTTP 410 Gone". I didn't test HTTP 404.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.


Expected Results:  
Request the favicon.ico file only once. Not twice in a row in a short time, which wastes bandwidth both of the user and of the server, etc.

Comment 1

[The Reporter]

By "short time" I mean anything between 0.01 and several seconds.

Comment 3

[The Reporter]

This is not a duplicate of the bug 299031. The bug 299031 does not deal with re-requesting the favicon.ico file TWICE on a SINGLE page load. That bug deals with re-requesting the favicon.ico file on SUBSEQUENT page loads. This is about a single page being loaded and favicon.ico requested twice in near-zero time. 

Read what I wrote. It may apply to HTTP 404 (I haven't tested that). These bugs are not duplicate. 

Comment 4

[The Reporter]

You request a page widget.html:

Firefox does:
GET widget.html
GET favicon.ico
GET favicon.ico

All that within less than one second.

Comment 5

[Jo Hermans]

no : read bug 299031 comment 2. A 410 should be cached (point 2). And a favicon request might also be treated differently form a regular request (point 1).

Comment 6

[The Reporter]

First, I don't see HTTP 404 mentioned anywhere. This bug may affect 404 too.

Second, let me quote from the first post, the actual bug report, 299031.

"Our server returns 410 for the /favicon.ico file. Despite that Firefox keeps 
requesting the file while the user continues browsing other pages on the same 
site (e.g. domainc.com/index.html and then domain.com/some.html)."

Note the words "other pages on the same site".

This bug is about only a SINGLE PAGE request. That bug is about CACHING results between requesting MULTIPLE PAGES, possible minutes or hours between.

Comment 9

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

Easy-to-use steps to reproduce, no external server access or packet watching needed:

$ cd $srcdir
$ echo "var DEBUG = true;" > testing/mochitest/server.js.new
$ cat testing/mochitest/server.js >> testing/mochitest/server.js.new
$ mv testing/mochitest/server.js{.new,}
$ python $OBJDIR/_tests/testing/mochitest/runtests.py --test-path=q

...and watch the debug output for two /favicon.ico requests.

Comment 10

[Brian Carpenter [:geeknik]]

On my linux box, I ran 'python -m SimpleHTTPServer' and visited the site using Firefox 3.5b4pre Build 20090406050537 and Firefox requested the /favicon.ico twice.

MASTER - - [06/Apr/2009 20:44:25] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 -
MASTER - - [06/Apr/2009 20:44:25] code 404, message File not found
MASTER - - [06/Apr/2009 20:44:25] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 -
MASTER - - [06/Apr/2009 20:44:28] code 404, message File not found
MASTER - - [06/Apr/2009 20:44:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 -

Firefox has also filled up the error log on my Apache servers on normal internet sites where I'm too lazy to upload a favicon.ico.

Comment 11

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was originally reported on Firefox 2.x or older, which is no longer supported and will not be receiving any more updates. I strongly suggest that you update to Firefox 3.6.6 or later, update your plugins (flash, adobe, etc.), and retest in a new profile. If you still see the issue with the updated Firefox, please post here. Otherwise, please close as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME
http://www.mozilla.com
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+mode

Comment 12

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.8 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.