46736 - even with Sidebar shut, am getting "cannot contact sidebar.cnn.com" error alerts

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: Sidebar, defect, P1)

Description

[ekrock's old account (dead)]

Using Commercial 2000072508 on WinNT 4.0 SP4.

Expected behavior: If you are running with the sidebar shut, the sidebar panels
should not be attempting to contact the server, and you should not receive
"unable to contact the server sidebar.cnn.com; connection timed out"-type error
alerts

Actual behavior: I'm seeing those alerts, sometimes one from each open window,
all of which have sidebar shut (except for the mail window). This annoys the user.

Note: While typing this bug report, I shut the sidebar panel in my mail window
to see if I still got the errors. Sure enough, after a few minutes, an alert
popped up and a Nav6 window (in which the sidebar panel was shut) rose to the
top of the stack.

Even when I had the mail window open, I don't believe that the mail window's
open sidebar panel was solely to blame here because I recall in the last day or
two having to get rid of one of those alerts from each Nav6 window even though
each one had the sidebar panel shut.

Comment 1

[ekrock's old account (dead)]

Nominating nsbeta3 as a polish bug. It interrupts and reduces the user's
productivity to have to dismiss "can't contact server sidebar.cnn.com" alerts
from sidebar panels you've shut.

Comment 2

[ekrock's old account (dead)]

Adding perf keyword on suspicion that having all these sidebar panels
duplicatively contacting the server could be burning netlib's time and slowing
down the browser.

Worrisome issues raised by this bug:
1) when sidebar is shut, it shouldn't be contacting the server
2) the sidebar panel in each window should not be duplicating the other's work
(in terms of contacting the server, getting content, etc.)
3) if the sidebar fails to contact the server, it should fail silently rather
than annoying the user with an alert

Comment 3

[Paul Chen]

nav triage team:
gotta get this one nailed if possible

Comment 4

[Steve Lamm]

I checked in a fix today. The sidebar tabs load "about:blank" when they are 
hidden.

Comment 5

[shrirang khanzode]

verified that this message is not popping up anymore. (all builds 2000090508m18)