441840 - Permission denied in error console for framed based online help system

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Issac Backlund]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052906 Firefox/3.0

I have a HTML/JavaScript online help system that uses many frames and JavaScript to communicate across the frameset. It uses relative paths to load .js files from different folders/sub-folders from the start html file. This has worked for years with all previous versions of FF,Netscape,IE. Now with FF 3 the error console shows permission denied for html\javascript that is in a different (parallel, not sub) folder than the start html page. This only happens when loaded from the HD, it works fine when the content is on a web server. I suspect this is some type of "security" change.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
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Comment 1

[Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee)]

Isaac, do you have any installed extensions? Is any of your content being loaded from an XmlHttpRequest object?

Comment 2

[Issac Backlund]

I have no extensions installed. It is just javascript, .css, and html files. It looks like this is an issue with Bug 402983. Here is what I posted on that bugs comments. Perhaps you could help with the discussion...

I have been developing browser (all of them/even Unix) based help systems for
over 8 years. They typically all use a shared (parallel folder) library code
base. This allows all the "books" in the help system to reference a single
folder for rendering .css,.js,.htm,.html code via relative paths. The
application that calls the help may open any one of the books html files, not
just a top level point file. The books file may then use this shared rendering
code. By using the shared code, changes can be made to the shared code in one
location, that can change its look and feel/bugs/general functions without
forcing the calling application to change code or having to duplicate the
shared code change if the code was placed under every "book".

By forcing all complex browser based applications to have a single top level
point of entry minimizes the type of development FireFox supports. Plus it
breaks the many past years of numerous deployed applications that have worked
until FF 3.

One solution could be to just allow certain types of files that can be accessed
(.js,.css,.htm.,html,.ps,.jpg,.gif,...)? Or a minimum level of upper context
levels of reference? Or both?

If this issue is a concern for the FF community, then why could it not be
solved in the "save/as" function. As long as FireFox was used to save the
content, then couldn't there be data placed in the save/as files to cover the
FireFox concern for this issue? Then FF would not have to be responsible for
the vast content that could not support this issue.

Comment 3

[Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee)]

Isaac, is this still a problem or did bug 402983 fix it for you?

Comment 4

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This is a mass search for bugs which are in the Firefox General component, are
UNCO, have not been changed for 500 days and have an unspecified version. 

Reporter, can you please update to Firefox 3.6.10 or later, create a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/managing+profiles, and test again. If you still see the issue, please update this bug. If the issue is gone, please set the status to RESOLVED > WORKSFORME.

Comment 5

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply from reporter, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 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.