546401 - Firefox/Minefield loads a blank site when attempting to open a CACert signed secure website

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Security, defect)

Description

[Mihai Moldovan]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.3a2pre) Gecko/20100215 Minefield/3.7a2pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.3a2pre) Gecko/20100215 Minefield/3.7a2pre

Hi,

obviously, when trying to load a CACert signed site, as for example https://svn.kvirc.de given above, but not limited to this site only, Firefox/Minefield will do nothing but show a blank site, name the Tab "(Untitled)" and remove the URL from the input bar.

I am aware that Firefox does not come with the CACert Root CA included in Mac OS X, for whatever reason, so I installed accordingly to the instructions on cacert.org.

I have tried both with my normal profile and with a clean profile, just in case I messed up something on my own. Not the case - both profiles (with the CACert Root CA included) won't load it.

I *know* there is bug ID #542449, but this seems not to be a duplicate, because there is no possibility to reload or actually enter this site, so a new/other issue.

Tested with both Stock Firefox 3.6 and Minefield (as soon above.)

This problem is not related to ALL HTTPS pages though, obviously only to some of them, more over, I guess only to CACert signed pages, though I am not sure.

I can, for instance, enter a bug report on https://bugzilla.mozilla.org or enter https://banking.spk-uckermark.de (just an Online Banking interface, for the sake of it of course encrypted.)

So any idea on this?

It drives me kinda nuts, I've got to start up Safari every time I want to open https://svn.kvirc.de.

Oh - another interesting side node: opening https://cacert.org works fine and I see a "signed by: Root CA" message, so I'm kinda lost on this...

Best regards,


Mihai

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install CACert Root CA cert if not already done so (http://wiki.cacert.org/BrowserClients)
2. Go to https://svn.kvirc.de
3. Stare at the blank page for a few minutes and close it.
Actual Results:  
Seeing a blank page.

Expected Results:  
Actually, not a blank page but a real web page.

Comment 1

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.3a2pre) Gecko/20100216 Minefield/3.7a2pre

I get the security warning:

This Connection is Untrusted
      You have asked Minefield to connect
securely to svn.kvirc.de, but we can't confirm that your connection is secure.
          Normally, when you try to connect securely,
sites will present trusted identification to prove that you are
going to the right place. However, this site's identity can't be verified.
        What Should I Do?

After choosing: I understand the risks, and adding an exception, the site loads.

So I don't know what is going wrong in your configuration. (Or maybe it is mac-only?) Can you retry in safe-mode / with a new profile?

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Basic+Troubleshooting#Make_a_new_profile

Comment 2

[Mihai Moldovan]

Hi,

as I have written before, I have tried with a new/clean profile as well - to no avail.

I am almost very sure, that I should get this message too. But there is none.

Actually, I have seen this message a few times as well, but never for this very site.

You are indeed right, that this problem is Mac OS X specific - I have not seen Firefox on any other OS (Windows, Linux) doing this at this site - I have double-checked every other OS, all were working fine.

I'll give Safe Mode a shot, please stand by.

Best regards,


Mihai

Comment 3

[Mihai Moldovan]

Hi again,

nope, same behavior in Safe Mode, tough luck.

I've really got no idea what this could be caused by.

As I switched over to Mac OS X like a month ago, I can't exactly say whether this happened with older versions of Firefox or not. But this issue seems though to be actual and ongoing.

Anyways, could anyone with Mac OS X, preferably 10.6.2 (Snow Leopard) re-test and confirm or deny?

Best regards,


Mihai

Comment 4

[Jonathan Steele]

I tested it. I see page just fine under Mac OS X. 

Check the certificate manager in Firefox.

Comment 5

[Mihai Moldovan]

Hi,

I have added, removed and done everything to this very certificate trying to get it working, nothing helped.

At first, I thought that deleting the Root CA may actually lead to an error message when loading the site, but to my astonishment, Firefox still showed a blank site only.

Best regards,


Mihai

Comment 6

[Mihai Moldovan]

Hi again,

just for the record: I just installed Seamonkey 2.0.3 and it's showing exactly the same behavior. No big surprise though, as Seamonkey shares many things with Firefox.

Either way, whatever this is, it seems to exist cross-Mozilla...

Weird though, that other people can not reproduce it.

Jonathan, what version of OS X are you using? 10.5 Leopard, by any chance?

Best regards,


Mihai

Comment 7

[Jonathan Steele]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Hi again,
> 
> just for the record: I just installed Seamonkey 2.0.3 and it's showing exactly
> the same behavior. No big surprise though, as Seamonkey shares many things with
> Firefox.
> 
> Either way, whatever this is, it seems to exist cross-Mozilla...
> 
> Weird though, that other people can not reproduce it.
> 
> Jonathan, what version of OS X are you using? 10.5 Leopard, by any chance?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> 
> Mihai

10.6.2

Comment 8

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

It's almost as if you weren't actually connecting to the site, but safe-mode and a new profile should have eliminated any Mozilla-related filtering, and the fact that you can connect from the same machine using Safari eliminates things like a host file or proxy getting in the way.

Have you tried from another machine, maybe at work or a friends? It's going to be pretty hard to figure this out if it only happens on your machine.

Comment 9

[Mihai Moldovan]

I will mark this bug as RESOLVED-WORKSFORME, as it seems the problem has vanished some year ago (or so) and I haven't seen any SSL problems (blank pages) either.