532752 - SwitchProxy Tool 1.4.1 on FF 3.5.5 on Win XP Causes Blank and Misbehaving App Dialogs

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Extension Compatibility, defect)

Description

[Gail Rahn Frederick]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

When the SwitchProxy Tool 1.4.1 extension is activated on the new Firefox 3.5.5 release on Windows XP, and the user performs basic Firefox operations (navigating to a URL, opening a new tab, clicking a link, etc.), after a few minutes, several bad things happen:

1. Scrollbars on new dialogs and browser tabs is located on the left side.
2. The Tools | Options menu is blank except for OK and CANCEL buttons.
3. Links can no longer be clicked (or network operations caused by clicking links hang forever).
4. Some user settings are reset (user sees prompt to close all or one tab when closing the application, for example, even after checking the "don't show me this anymore" box.)
5. The location bar no longer shows drop-down suggestions and bookmarks.

(These all look like resource corruption or exhaustion issues for a Win32 app.)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Disable all extensions.
2. Install and enable SwitchProxy Tool 1.4.1
3. Exit Firefox 3.5.5. Ensure the Firefox.exe process is not listed in Task Manager.
4. Restart Firefox.
5. Navigate to a new URL in the default tab. Click a link on the web page shown.
6. Open a new tab and navigate to any URL. Click a link or two.
7. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 for up to 2 minutes.

7. By now, you should see that the location bar stops providing bookmark and history suggestions.
8. Open the Tools | Options menu. Notice that it is blank except for OK and CANCEL buttons.
9. Open the Tools | Add-ons menu. Notice that it uses a left-side scroll bar. (You may also see left-side scrollbars on new tabs).
10. Click a link in an open tab. It may not respond.
11. With multiple tabs open, exit Firefox. You'll get a prompt to save tab locations, even if you have previously disabled this feature.
Actual Results:  
The bad behavior is summarized in Steps to Reproduce, starting with Step 7. The location bar stops providing sugggestions, Tools | Options dialog is blank, some user settings are reset and all newly-created vertical scroll bars are on the left side of the screen.

Expected Results:  
Firefox should run as normal.

Lenovo T60 laptop w/ WinXP SP3. This extension functioned properly in my previous Firefox installation.

Comment 1

[Gail Rahn Frederick]

I can provide screenshots as necessary of the bad behavior mentioned in this bug. Email me for more info.

Comment 2

[Gail Rahn Frederick]

Marking FF version as 3.5 branch.

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Please report issues caused by extension to the extension authors

Comment 4

[Gail Rahn Frederick]

So noted. I contacted [e-mail] and reported the bug.

One would think that FF would protect itself from such catastrophic consequences of a misbehaving extension, though. Moving dialog box scrollbars around, disabling location bar suggestion and even preventing link clicks - these may be the extension's fault but the core functionality of FF was compromised in this situation.

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

An extensions runs as part of Firefox like Firefox own user Interface.
An Extension can do everything that Firefox could do if Firefox got the permissions from the OS : format your hdd, send private files from the hdd to a server, freeze Firefox......

addons from addons.mozilla.org are checked before you can download them but only for security issues but nor for bugs.

And if they prevent the Firefox startup you can use http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

Comment 6

[tfk252hasan]

I confirm that this happens also inGNU/Linux (Ubuntu 9.10), exact symptoms as described above. Disabling Switchproxy and let other extensions enabled, allows Firefox-3.5.5 to works normally