Closed Bug 436815 Opened 17 years ago Closed 15 years ago

offline mode turn on/off

Categories

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

x86
Windows XP
enhancement
Not set
normal

Tracking

()

RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 437453

People

(Reporter: kjarli, Unassigned)

Details

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; nl; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008051206 Firefox/3.0 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; nl; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008051206 Firefox/3.0 I would like a setting in Extra -> Options -> advanced -> network or first tab, to always go in offline or always go in online mode. It's really annoying when FF automaticly goes to offline mode when my router fails to work once again. This is not the real problem as im working on localhost with php... But the error FF gives because of offline mode is really, really annoying Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.
(In reply to comment #0) > It's really annoying when FF automaticly goes to offline mode when my router > fails to work once again. That's the whole point - if there's no internet connection, Firefox is always offline (see bug 76111). Otherwise you would get a network error after a lengthy timeout, and most users didn't understood that.
Well, that's 100% not true... When I go to File -> Work offline and turn it off when I have no internet connection, I can still go to http://localhost/ and that's the whole point. I can't go there if firefox is offline, because it will give me an error, while in online mode with no connection, I can still use it. It's really annoying when my the network of my school is unstable...
I think it should work when you go to http://127.0.0.1/ - it's the DNS lookup that blocks you.
No, in offline mode, http://127.0.0.1/ doesn't work while http://localhost/ does. Though now it suddenly does work... it's wierd, almost as if he doesn't recognize the addresses to be local and gives the error, while when they are already visited than you go offline mode, he suddenly remembers that they are local... seems to be more of a bug ...
(In reply to comment #4) > No, in offline mode, http://127.0.0.1/ doesn't work while http://localhost/ > does. > > Though now it suddenly does work... it's wierd, almost as if he doesn't > recognize the addresses to be local and gives the error, while when they are > already visited than you go offline mode, he suddenly remembers that they are > local... That's because an entry for localhost is in the DNS cache ... > > seems to be more of a bug ... >
Yes, but should't localhost point to 127.0.0.1 than ??
I'd like to second that. I use wwwoffle as local proxy. Firefox thinks I'm offline and doesn't connect to wwwoffle. I have to switch off offline mode from the menu and hope FF doesn't switch it on again. "On the Internet", I found a few references to about:config settings that are supposed to get rid of this problem but none works. If you make software smart, please give people at least a chance to switch it off.
This sounds like a serious problem that has recently started bugging me. (Using Firefox on Linux - currently Fedora 9.) When firefox started remembering open windows after being forcibly killed that was an enormous boon. I keep much of my working state in firefox, so by killing firefox before shutting down the machine I could easily get back to my previous state after rebooting. Now after rebooting all the open windows complain that firefox is offline. I have to go to turn it back online and then laboriously click on 'retry' on EVERY tab. This is ridiculous. I appreciate that the new feature may be useful for some people in some contexts, but to quote comment 7 "If you make software smart, please give people at least a chance to switch if off." I learnt over and over again as a software developer that backward compatibility can be extremely important for old users of a system and disregarding that need risked losing users.
I have found some related bug reports. There seem to be more, but I stopped looking. Together these indicate that online/offline switching in Firefox needs more work. The last message indicates a serious bug that turned out to be the cause of my own problem. Bug 325129 – "Try again" button makes no sense in "working offline" error page Bug 434941 – browser always starts up 'workintg offline', I have to click that button in file menu to undo it. Bug 441484 – Firefox starts in offline mode everytime, but there is an internet connection available Bug 424626 – (linux) Firefox is put into offline mode on startup when NetworkManager is running but not controlling the active network interface (e.g. when using PPP) I confirm that on my linux system if I turn off the NetworkManager service, firefox no longer starts up in offline mode requiring me to cycle round all my tabs restarting them manually. As it happens this is OK for me: my PC is connected by cable to a router and I don't need NetworkManager -- it was turned on inadvertently when I upgraded to Fedora 9. But for many people this incompatibility between NM and FF could be serious. Strangely, the current bug was reported by a Windows user, so maybe there are two bugs with similar manifestations, one on Windows and one on Linux. I don't know enough to know whether this could be the case.
"If you make software smart, please give people at least a chance to switch it off." Yes, this is all I need. I have a few sometimes-faulty hardware connections, and when the network goes down, Firefox goes into Offline Mode, but when the network comes back up, Firefox doesn't notice, or doesn't notice soon enough (I've not waited longer than a couple of minutes to find out which). An about:config option that causes Firefox to never go into Offline Mode would be perfect for me. There are several people looking for an option like this. You can find them by googling for "about:config"+"work offline" or "never work offline". http://www.google.com/search?q="about%3Aconfig"+"work+offline" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="never+work+offline"
I have not tested this yet, but what happens if you use a VPN connection like Neo Accel Tray, or Hamachi and you shut that down. Will Firefox go in offline mode than ?? (even if you have your normal connection online)
Is there any work on this? I think the issue is that "Offline" is really a euphemism for "Known-to-be-not-accessible." I'm with a bunch of these other developers in that I know how to edit my /etc/hosts file, so I do. I sort out different projects that I develop on my machine based on their how I call the server. In other words VirtualHost. So in my hosts file, I've got a bunch of these lines: 127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.0.1 project1 127.0.0.1 project2 127.0.0.1 ...etc... But in Offline line mode, these are currently inaccessible. I believe that Firefox could be smarter about what is accessible by going only one "hop" in the DNS request line. (Is that possible?) For instance, those of us who mess with our hosts files, or those of us who use local DNS servers, etc. (The special one hop because the local machine is *always* accessible.)
(In reply to comment #12) that's bug 87717
(In reply to comment #13) Ach! You're right. Apologies for the noise.
I think this bug is half dup of bug 437453 and half dup of bug 87717.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
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