441764 - message is unclear when trying to go to a domain with an invalid URL

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Matthew Cline]

On some systems a domain name which starts or ends with a "-" will get an error when attempting to resolve the name even though the DNS server will happily resolve it.  The "Address Not Found" page should include a note on this if the domain name might trigger this problem.

Comment 2

[Dave Garrett]

Nevermind, not a duplicate.  You just want it to tell users why it's failing.

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

A leading "-" or a "-" at the end are just invalid (not allowed) and that means that such a name should not exists at all.
Do you want to explain every case for an invalid URL that might work with some OS/DNS combination ?

Comment 4

[Dave Garrett]

I think the point is that while it is invalid, that doesn't mean it isn't occasionally done anyway.  Windows basically just ignores the spec and due to market share: bug->feature.  User confusion could be avoided if the error message was more informative.

Personally, I think the problem here is that the error message is "Address Not Found" and not an "Invalid URL" error of some type.  It shouldn't try to see if it works; it should just know and stop from the start.  Otherwise, you get this inconsistent behavior across multiple OSes.

However, that being said, I don't think it's that big of a deal.  My guess is that someone will come along and WONTFIX this.

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Well, first off this is probably in the wrong component, since the exact text is up to the app, not really a docshell thing, last I checked.