762400 - javascript: URL doesn't work when ''most visited'' page is displayed

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: General, defect)

Description

[benoit-bailleux]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:14.0) Gecko/20120604 Firefox/14.0a2
Build ID: 20120604042007

Steps to reproduce:

Usie bookmarklet (with its keyword) or directly a "javascript:" URL while the "most visited" page is displayed


Actual results:

Nothing, and the console contains an error message (depending on the exact value of the javascript: URL) like:
"Horodatage : 07/06/2012 09:47:18
Erreur : uncaught exception: ReferenceError: window is not defined"

or 
"Horodatage : 07/06/2012 09:49:05
Erreur : uncaught exception: ReferenceError: alert is not defined"


Expected results:

The JS code should have been executed (and the target page loaded).
With a bookmarklet, the behaviour is as expected if "about:blank" is displayed instead of "about:newtab"

Comment 1

[Bjorn Martensson]

This is still a problem in Firefox 41.0.1. It is now worse since due to Bug 1118285 it is no longer possible to use browser.newtab.url to set the newtab url to something else that allows JavaScript (e.g. about:blank).

This prevents common power usage scenario of opening a new tab and then looking up resources based on e.g. an ID using JavaScript.

Comment 2

[Bjorn Martensson]

A workaround described here solves this in Firefox 41.0.1: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2944193

The workaround: Put the following in your mozilla.cfg file
var newTabURL = "about:blank";
Components.utils.import("resource:///modules/NewTabURL.jsm");
NewTabURL.override(newTabURL);

// you can use this to save a copy to browser.newtab.url
pref("browser.newtab.url",NewTabURL.get());

Comment 3

[Michelle Funches - QA]

@Reporter - We are cleaning up our list - is this still an issue? Is FF still 41.0 or have you applied upgrade? Thanks.

Comment 4

[benoit-bailleux]

(In reply to Michelle Funches - QA from comment #3)
> @Reporter - We are cleaning up our list - is this still an issue?

Yes, still an issue.

> Is FF still 41.0 or have you applied upgrade? Thanks.

I'm using Firefox Developer Edition (now v44.0a2) and the issue is still present.

Comment 5

[Irvin Ives Lau]

Hello, is this bug still available to work on? If not, can you assign me to fix this bug?