422223 - New history search feature does not retain percent encoding

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Matt Purvis]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030714 Firefox/3.0b4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030714 Firefox/3.0b4

When returning to a visited URL using the new location bar auto-complete the resulting URL may be incorrect due to percent-encoding differences.  For example if the original URL contained a percent-encoded # (hash) character then the auto-completed URL will contain a literal # (hash) instead.  This is interpreted as a named anchor and so the full URL will not be requested correctly.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Forgive the convoluted steps but they do demonstrate the bug quite well.

1. Go to https://www.grc.com/ppp
2. Select the second radio button under "Passcode character set" (to select larger character set).
3. Submit form.
4. Click on "Display next three cards" link at the bottom of the page.
5. Note that the URL of the displayed page will be something like this:

https://www.grc.com/ppp?1=fd2862b7b1ba92dce81eaca2d7cb6e28f1aadea6be6a83628f64803d428f2e01&2=4&4=!%22%23%24%25%26%27()*%2b%2c-.%2f23456789%3a%3b%3C%3d%3E%3f%40ABCDEFGHJKLMNOPRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_abcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~&5=PPP%20Passcard%20Demo

6. Type part of that URL into the location bar and select the item found in your history.
7. Note that the page will be displayed incorrectly and the URL will look something like this:

https://www.grc.com/ppp?1=fd2862b7b1ba92dce81eaca2d7cb6e28f1aadea6be6a83628f64803d428f2e01&2=4&4=!%22#$%&%27()*+,-./23456789:;%3C=%3E?@ABCDEFGHJKLMNOPRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_abcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~&5=PPP%20Passcard%20Demo
Actual Results:  
The URL retrieved from the history by the new auto-complete mechanism was not percent-encoded in the same way as the original URL.

Expected Results:  
The URL should have been identical to that of the original page.  You will also notice that this page displayed differently to the original because of the literal # (hash) character in the URL.  This is must be interpreted as a named anchor and so the remainder of the URL is not part of the request.

I have tested this on Firefox 2.0.0.7 (Linux i686) and the problem does not occur.  I presume this is because the bug has been introduced by the new location bar auto-complete mechanism.

Comment 1

[Alex]

On Beta4, I can reproduce this bug, however n the Beta5pre, as of March 18, I cannot reproduce.

The second URL is percent encoded.
First:
https://www.grc.com/ppp?1=a148c92420b272cc04bd47ca0f68dac9c79f6d8cbd18e3a2eb3858f5e16441da&2=4&4=!%22%23%24%25%26%27()*%2b%2c-.%2f23456789%3a%3b%3C%3d%3E%3f%40ABCDEFGHJKLMNOPRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_abcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~&5=PPP%20Passcard%20Demo
Second:
https://www.grc.com/ppp?1=a148c92420b272cc04bd47ca0f68dac9c79f6d8cbd18e3a2eb3858f5e16441da&2=4&4=!%22%23%24%25%26%27()*%2b%2c-.%2f23456789%3a%3b%3C%3d%3E%3f%40ABCDEFGHJKLMNOPRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_abcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~&5=PPP%20Passcard%20Demo

Ran it through FC in DOS and it found no differences.

So, Beta4->Bug occurs
    Beta5pre(March18)->Bug does not occur

Comment 2

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Bulk closing all UNCONFIRMED bugs dealing with places that haven't had any bug activity in over 120 days, have no votes, and are not enhancement requests.

If you are still experiencing this issue in Firefox 3.0 or later, please re-open the bug with steps to reproduce (if they were not part of the original comment).