471724 - Unable to register a new protocol in Mac version of Firefox [Mac]

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[u93378]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120121 Firefox/3.0.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120121 Firefox/3.0.5

I have made repeated attempts to register a new protocol in my copy of Firefox, associating a new kind of link with a shell script.  I always get the error "Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (<protocol name>) isn't associated with any program.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Add shell script to ~/bin to handle my remember pseudo-url
2.  Configure using about:config to handle remember: protocol:
   a.  network.protocol-handler.app.remember string /Users/rpg/bin/remember
   b.  network.protocol-handler.external.remember boolean true
   c.  verify that network.protocol-handler.expose-all is true
3. Add a pseudo book mark to my toolbar:  javascript:location.href='remember://%20'+location.href+'%1C'+escape(document.title)+'%1C'+escape(window.getSelection())
4.  Attempt to use the bookmark to pass a url to remember script
   
Actual Results:  
Modal dialog error box from Firefox:  Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (remember) isn't associated with any program.



Expected Results:  
Invoked my shell script to handle the remember: pseudo-url.

I have posted requests for help on both MozillaZine and the support pages.  These requests, with full details, may be found at:  http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=889745&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a and at http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=en-US&forumId=1&comments_parentId=214570

Attempts to use both an absolute pathname or a path-relative pathname to locate the shell script that is supposed to handle the protocol both yield the same results.

I tested the shell script at a shell prompt to verify that it worked correctly.

I have tried to register a new protocol on Mac OSX (10.5), associating a new kind of link ('remember:') with a shell script. For those who care, this is a variation on a technique for using the emacs remember package with emacs org-mode.

When I try to use one of my remember urls, I get the following error:

    Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (remember) isn't associated with any program.

I have seen a number of posts on this topic, all saying that Firefox may spuriously give this error if the associated program can't be found. However, I have verified that the script can be found by running it from the command line.

I had given up on this, having not gotten any responses to my queries (on IRC as well as through the web), but just got a response to my Mozilla Zine posting from someone who stated that s/he saw the same behavior.  This prompted my bugreport.

Comment 1

[Nathaniel Bauernfeind]

I'd like to confirm this bug. I'm running OSX Leopard 10.5 with Firefox 3.0.5 and cannot register a new protocol. Doing EXACTLY the same thing on my linux box works everytime, but it fails everytime on my mac. The only add-on installed is the google desktop add-on, but it still fails when the add-on is disabled.

I also cleared out my profile with an "rm -rf ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox to make sure that it had default values.

This is extremely inconvenient for me at this time. (Required for work)

Comment 2

[Ludovic Maître]

I confirm the bug, i can't register the protocol for OpenOffice under Firefox 3 for Mac OS X. It's really a big problem for us because the webapplication we develop at work use this protocol to allow users to edit OpenOffice documents and we can' t provide support for our app under Mac OS X and Firefox until it is resolved.

Comment 3

[mdl]

I can confirm this bug. It is a major bug in Firefox under Mac OS X. If I try to register a new protocol, I get the error reported above. Thus, it is impossible to create new ways for Firefox to interact with external applications. This bug occurs regardless of whether I add a path to the application as a string in about:config.

(On Linux, by contrast, I am given a dialog box for selecting a new application.)

Comment 4

[David Trem]

I confirm the bug.
Very annoying, prevent me to enjoy Fireforg with emacs org-mode.
Please fix ASAP.
Thanks in advance

Comment 5

[Kevin Brubeck Unhammer]

I can confirm this bug on Mac OS X 10.4. 

Running conkeror instead until this gets fixed.

Comment 6

[u93378]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I can confirm this bug on Mac OS X 10.4. 
> 
> Running conkeror instead until this gets fixed.

Can you verify that conkeror fixes this?  I am asking because my impression was that the issue might be one with Mac OSX --- that somehow we needed to interact with OSX to get new URL schemas recognized.

If you can, please let us know if a new URL protocol works with conkeror.

thanks!

Comment 7

[u93378]

What does it take to get a bug on this bugzilla to move to confirmed status?  This has been on bugzilla for almost a year now, and there are multiple comments corroborating it, so I'm surprised it's still listed as UNCONFIRMED.  Is there something we should be doing to get this triaged?

Comment 8

[Kevin Brubeck Unhammer]

(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > I can confirm this bug on Mac OS X 10.4. 
> > 
> > Running conkeror instead until this gets fixed.
> 
> Can you verify that conkeror fixes this?  I am asking because my impression was
> that the issue might be one with Mac OSX --- that somehow we needed to interact
> with OSX to get new URL schemas recognized.
> 
> If you can, please let us know if a new URL protocol works with conkeror.
> 
> thanks!

With conkeror I don't use the link protocol in the above way, instead I have the setting described at http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/org-protocol.php#sec-8.1

(I have no idea how to set up protocols in conkeror, sorry...)

Comment 9

[justloop]

I can confirm this bug for FF 3.5.3 running on 10.6.1

This bug makes convenient interaction between emacs and firefox impossible and there is no workaround that I can find.

How can it still be 'unconfirmed' when reproduction is so straightforward? Just change the status to 'ignored because we don't know how to fix it' and be done with it.

Comment 10

[yk]

I'd like to confirm this bug for firefox 3.5.5 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091108 Gentoo Firefox/3.5.5) 
running on x86_64 (Linux saigon 2.6.31-gentoo-r6-1 #1 Sat Nov 14 12:26:51 CET 2009 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3400+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux).

Pretty please zap this one :-)

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(speaking as a non Mac person) is this still valid?

Comment 12

[u93378]

Yes.  Just checked it this minute (FF 16.0.2, Mac OS X Lion).  I wonder if it's related to the inability to use -remote commands on the Mac.  See bug #472891

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Nomis101, can you confirm?

(In reply to Robert Goldman from comment #12)
> Yes.  Just checked it this minute (FF 16.0.2, Mac OS X Lion).  I wonder if
> it's related to the inability to use -remote commands on the Mac.  See bug
> #472891

Comment 14

[Nomis101]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #13)
> Nomis101, can you confirm?
> 
> (In reply to Robert Goldman from comment #12)
> > Yes.  Just checked it this minute (FF 16.0.2, Mac OS X Lion).  I wonder if
> > it's related to the inability to use -remote commands on the Mac.  See bug
> > #472891

If I'm honest, I didn't know about the network.protocol-handler.app pref before. So I've read a bit about it before testing. First I've did the STR from the initial post with FF 19 and FF 23.0a1. Which resulted in the same error message as mentioned. Than I've tried it with both FF versions and:
network.protocol-handler.app.rtmp;/usr/local/bin/rtmpdump
Which also gave me the same error:
> The address wasn't understood - Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (rtmp) isn't associated with any program.<
Because I was unsure if this maybe was Bug 312953, I changed the path to /Applications/Application.app
This also resulted in the above error message. So, yes, it seems I can confirm.

Comment 15

[u93378]

Tested again this evening, while in discussions on #firefox irc channel.  Confirmed on Firefox 20.0 Mac OS X freshly updated.