567500 - anchors with "target={any option}" cause errors if "Open new windows in a tab instead" is selected [caused by Norton Toolbar]

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Extension Compatibility, defect)

Description

[Gregg]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)

If I have the "Open new windows in a tab instead" option selected, any anchor tags on my web page that have "target=xxx" cause multiple errors to pop up, but the link eventually loads.

The first message is:  "Permission denied for <http://www.tgif-classic.org> to call method UnnamedClass.toString on <>."  No URL or line # are listed (using onerror in my Javascript to capture bug information).

The second message is:  "uncaught exception: unknown (can't convert to string)"

The above errors happen alternatively, usually 3 times each, and then when you've clicked OK on the last one, it finally opens the new URL in a new tab, but it still doesn't switch to the new tab, even if I've got the "When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately" option selected.

It does not seem to matter which "target" ("_blank", named, etc.) is provided, or how it is provided (as an attribute in the html <A> tag, or by setting it in Javascript using either myanchor.target = "x" or myanchor.setAttribute("target", "x").  All of these fail the same way.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Turn on the "Open new windows in a tab instead" and "When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately" options.
2.  Go to www.tgif-classic.org
3.  Click on the Host Hotel link on the left nav bar and you'll get the errors.
4.  Turn off the "Open new windows in a tab instead" option.
5.  Click the same link on my page and it will successfully open a new window with no errors.
Actual Results:  
After step 3, you get the errors mentioned in the Details sections.  However, if you make the change as specified in step 4, it works correctly.

Expected Results:  
After step 3, the new tab should have been opened in the same browser window, with the new URL loaded in it, with no errors, and the new tab should have become the active one.

A friend reported this to me.  He told me it works fine in IE8 (not sure if he tested any other browsers), but Firefox does not work for him or for me, so I know it's not just me.

Comment 1

[Gregg]

I have just discovered that if I go to Tools>Add-ons and disable my Norton Toolbar 3.7.2, that fixes the problem as well, but obviously I'd still like to use my Norton toolbar.

Comment 2

[Robert Longson [:longsonr]]

You need to take this up with the Norton Toolbar folks.

Comment 3

[Gregg]

I have tried to report this to the Norton folks, but they're a pain in the butt to get something escalated to an engineer.  They spent over 3 hours today remotely connecting to my PC to try to debug it.  They're supposed to escalate to an engineer tonight and call me back tomorrow to discuss again.  We tried with both FF 3.5.5 and 3.6.3, and we also upgraded my Norton 360 from V3 to V4 (and therefore my Norton Toolbar from V3.7.2 to V4.6), and I'm still having the same problem.  Will update this thread when I find out more.