672394 - Firefox 5 login problem

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 659569

(Core :: Networking: HTTP, defect)

Description

[Nick]

- We develop our own web application for accessing time clock data.
- Since updating to Firefox 5, several of our clients have reported issues logging into the application
- You can bring up the login page but once you enter the username and password and click submit, you always get booted back to the login screen.
- I was able to reproduce the issue consistently with the following preconditions and steps.

Preconditions
- In the Firefox browser settings under Tools > Options > Privacy tab; Leave the "Clear history when firefox closes" unchecked. I checked then under Settings, leave "Cache" unchecked.


Steps:
1. Bring up a Firefox 5 browser and type the application's IP address/url in the address bar.
2. Once the login page is loaded, enter your username and password.
3. Logout and close the browser.
4. Bring up a Firefox 5 browser again and type the application's IP address/url in the address bar.
5. Once the login page is loaded, enter your username and password.

Results:
- You get booted back to the login screen every time.

Expected Results:
- I expected to be logged into the software successfully.

Notes.
1. If you delete/clear the cache, the login is successful
2. This issue is specific to Firefox 5. The login is aways successful in IE9 and Chrome 12.0 whether you delete browsing history or not.

- Please contact me via email if you wish to have a test account to one of our web apps for testing.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

I bet that you use a 302 redirect and that redirect is cached because you don't forbid it.

Please attach a http log:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/HTTP_Logging
(you can anonymize the hostname in the log.

Comment 2

[Nick]

Attachment: HTTP log file

Thanks Matti. I've attached the HTTP log file. The activity is from the exact steps listed above for producing the issue.

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Sorry for the delay but I'm very occupied by my job.
moving to networking

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Honza, could you take a look, please?

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

So why I see in that log is an HTTP request foor http://192.168.2.43/ which ends up with a 302 to http://192.168.2.43/notFound.html

Then there is an HTTP request for http://192.168.2.43/index.html which gets a 301 (which is a cacheable response) to Location: http://192.168.2.43/login.html?uri=%2Findex%2Ehtml with no cache control headers of any sort and no Vary header (presumably it varies by cookie, right?).

After submittng the login form, we get another 301 back to index.html.  And when we try to do that, we get this part of the log:

0[92d140]: Have status line [version=11 status=301 statusText=Moved Permanently]
0[92d140]: ParseContentType [type=text/html]
0[92d140]: nsHttpResponseHead::MustValidate ??
0[92d140]: no mandatory validation requirement
0[92d140]: Not validating based on expiration time
0[92d140]: Redirection-chain does not contain key http://192.168.2.43/index.html
0[92d140]: nsHTTPChannel::CheckCache exit [this=4c9d280 doValidation=0]
0[92d140]: nsHttpChannel::ReadFromCache [this=4c9d280] Using cached copy of: http://192.168.2.43/index.html

And the cached copy is of course a 301 to the login page.

I'm pretty sure some of Honza's or Michal's recent changes fixed this by working around the lack of a "Vary: cookie" header in the server responses here.  Nick, would you be willing to try an Aurora or Beta build from  http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/channel/ ?

Comment 6

[Michal Novotny [:michal]]

I think that this was fixed in bug #659569.

Comment 7

[Nick]

Boris, 

I am willing to try an Aurora and/or Beta version. I'll have one of my testers download and play around with the two builds ans should have some feedback for you by the end of the day.

Thank you.

Comment 8

[Nick]

We haven't run into any redirect issues with either the Aurora or Beta builds. The changes made in those builds seems to have resolved this particular issue.

Is this something that can be pushed out to the current Fx5 version?

Comment 9

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

>Is this something that can be pushed out to the current Fx5 version?
The next update for Firefox5 is Firefox6. The Release of Firefox6 is AFAIK in 2 days.

Comment 10

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Nick, comment 9 is correct.  At this point, Firefox 6 has shipped and Firefox 5 is end-of-life; Firefox 5 users should pretty much all be migrated to Firefox 6 in short order.

Sounds like this was the same issue as bug 659569.  Thank you for double-checking that!