68534 - omitting final slash on url yields bad error message

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 66183

(Core :: Networking: HTTP, defect)

Description

[john russell]

when an url requires a closing / , mozilla no longer
adds it but instead gives a  isp_name  not found msg.
Old netscape 4.7 auto added the /   but  if that is
not desired then either a better error msg such as
 isp_name/folder_name  not found or display the 404 page
 as MSIE does.  as an example to test try
www.intelegence.com/traction      
adding the final slash will get you there.
as mentioned msie gets to a 404 page but interestingly
Amaya gets to a redirection page that leads to correct address.
This is one of those places where the new is not as good as the
old as ole 4.7 worked !!

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

reassigning to networking:http

reporter, www.intelegence.com redirects to intelegence.com which has no DNS
entry as far as I can tell...

Comment 2

[Keyser Sose]

This is a preference bug more then anything. Every other browser that I use
including Lynx, Konqurer etc don't add the extra / on the end. Thoughts? Should
We add it? or not? I say no.

Comment 3

[john russell]

If the backslash is not to be added (a reasonable solution),
then at least display the 404 error page as MSIE does.
This would allow the viewer to figure out that the url needs changing.  
Currently mozilla brings up its own error dialog in the cryptic mozilla
style which indicates that the server cant be accessed (and no mention 
of the folder) while the actual error is in assuming the folder name is a
file name (further misdirection to user).  Since 404 error pages are
well understood by most netizens, that is what should be provided,
not some proprietary cryptic note......

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Um.. it looks like Mozilla is doing exactly the right thing.  With no slash:

  ~% telnet www.intelegence.com 80
  Trying 128.121.225.76...
  Connected to www.intelegence.com.
  Escape character is '^]'.
  GET /traction HTTP/1.0
  Host: www.intelegence.com

  HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
  Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 22:12:38 GMT
  Server: Apache/1.3.12 OpenSSL/0.9.5a (Unix)
  Location: http://intelegence.com/traction/
  Connection: close
  Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

There is no IP address associated with intelegence.com, so Mozilla correctly
reports that the hostname is not found.  There is no reason we should be
returning a 404 error here, because the web server did not give us a 404 error....

With a slash:

  Trying 128.121.225.76...
  Connected to www.intelegence.com.
  Escape character is '^]'.
  GET /traction/ HTTP/1.0
  Host: www.intelegence.com

  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 22:15:31 GMT
  Server: Apache/1.3.12 OpenSSL/0.9.5a (Unix)
  Last-Modified: Sat, 08 Apr 2000 21:39:50 GMT
  ETag: "55fa15-f02-38efa726"
  Accept-Ranges: bytes
  Content-Length: 3842
  Connection: close
  Content-Type: text/html

And we show the page in this case.

recomment INVALID or over to evang....

Comment 5

[john russell]

There IS an IP associated with http://www.intelegence.com
and this was the start of the url tested called
http://www.intelegence.com/traction
using the 2nd url brings up an error message that intelegence.com 
could not be found -- please try again.   
however if you directly enter http://intelegence.com you will see that
it
is there!!!  SO THE ERROR MESSAGE OFFERED IS NOT CORRECT!
MOZILLA CHOPPED THE WWW. PART AND THEN SAYS IT CANT FIND
LIKE DAH -- IF IT SEARCHED FOR WHAT THE PERSON TYPED IN
IT WOULD FIND THE ISP BUT NOT THE FILE (AS IT REALLY IS A 
FOLDER)  SO THE MESSAGE IS WRONG. Personally whether the 
/ is added as in net 4.7  or just a report of file not found are both
good
solutions BUT NOT CHOPPING THE WWW PART AND SAYING THE ISP 
IS WRONG !!!!   I AM QUITE ADAMENT ABOUT THIS AS BOTH MSIE
AND AMAYA OFFER BETTER SOLUTIONS ... EVEN NET 4.7 IS BETTER
THAN MOZILLA .  WHY DOES IT RIP OUT THE WWW PART.

THE permanently moved message (301 error) refers to the folder
/traction NOT TO THE ISP.  In fact Amaya uses this message to 
send an appropriate message to the user with a clickable link to
the correct location.  Look at Amaya's strategy for handling 
permanently moved message (301 error) as this is even better than
treating like a 404 error (MSIE method) and of course way better 
than the mozilla way ... the problem is in the way a 301 error is
handled  so your tracing method HAs revealed what needs to be looked
at.  once again
 There IS an IP associated with http://www.intelegence.com

Comment 6

[john russell]

further inspection of the 301 error page at www.intelegence.com
indicates that they have entered the relocation address without
the www.  That is the isp has made a second error in addition to
 not aliasing the name.   However both Amaya and MSIE have 
appropriate reactions while Mozilla does not.  I will contact 
the isp later to get them to correct their errors but will not
for a while just in case the mozilla team wants to fix their 
reaction to problems ... a rare error situation to be sure but
one that should be tolerated ESPECIALLY WHEN A VERY LOW TOLERANCE
BROWSER LIKE AMAYA CAN COPE! Amaya can now cope better than mozilla
or msie in several situations but i dont think it is by design ;-] ;-] ;-]

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

What in your opinion is the correct reaction to a 301 error?  Currently mozilla 

tries to open the URL being relocated to (since a lot of sites use 301 return 

codes to do redirection within the site).



In this case the URL pointed too by the 301 error includes a hostname that does 

not exist.  Mozilla correctly reports that the host is not found.



I believe that Mozilla should report _which_ host is not found or maybe say 

something like "Host not found opening http://intelegence.com".  But that would 

be a separate bug....



Reporter, if you believe that Mozilla's handling of 301 errors needs to be 

improved, I suggest you file a request for improvement on that, reference this 

bug, and include the link without a "/" that fails in this case...

Comment 8

[john russell]

I guess it is a matter of how mozilla copes with an
error in a 301 message that I find problematic. Although
their method is CORRECT, it does nothing to COPE with the
error. MSIE and at one time Netscape were commited to coping
with user and network errors. Amaya took the other approach 
ie to enforce strictness.  Now it seems that Amaya is more
error tolerant than the pack (at least in this issue). As it
is not technically an error, I will not pursue this further.
Mark it as unfounded if you wish.  As many other
users are doing, I will choose to use the error tolerant browser
MSIE on a day-to-day basis and save Mozilla for demo purposes.
I'd rather switch than fight!

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

John, please see bug 66183 which covers part of the problem you are seeing.

Also, I've just file bug 69376 which should cover your concerns about the
actions taken by Mozilla upon encountering a 301 response.

Comment 10

[Keyser Sose]

Choosing 66183

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 66183 ***

Comment 11

[James Green]

Verified dup.