77030 - aol.com - Connection times out in Mozilla, works fine in other browsers

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect, P1)

Description

[Sean Harding]

On http://www.aol.com/aim/mobile/sms/setup_select_carrier.htm, there is a form
that makes a POST to http://otap.oscar.aol.com/?Cmd=SignOn&carrier=voicestream.
In Mozilla, clicking the button results in several seconds of waiting (with
"Resolving host otap.oscar.aol.com" in the status bar), and then the message
"The operation timed out when attempting to contact otap.oscar.aol.com."

However, at the same time, this URL works fine from Netscape 4.78 running on the
same machine, and telnets to port 80 of otap.oscar.aol.com work fine (including
manually typing in the HTTP POST and getting back the right info).

This is happened more than ten times in a row, so it doesn't seem to be a
one-time event.

Comment 1

[Andreas M. "Clarence" Schneider]

otap.oscar.aol.com has CNAME mob-m01.blue.aol.com (IP 64.12.160.227).
In NS 4.76 http://otap.oscar.aol.com/?Cmd=SignOn&carrier=voicestream works for
me, but not http://mob-m01.blue.aol.com/?Cmd=SignOn&carrier=voicestream or
http://64.12.160.227/?Cmd=SignOn&carrier=voicestream . Maybe they answer only
when receiving "Host: otap.oscar.aol.com". Do we send a wrong Host-Header?

Confirming, 2001-04-20-21, Win NT.

Comment 2

[Andreas M. "Clarence" Schneider]

That was wrong. A GET to http://otap.oscar.aol.com/?Cmd=SignOn&carrier=voicestream
fails in NS 4.76 too.

Comment 3

[Andreas M. "Clarence" Schneider]

Finally found the real problem: otap.oscar.aol.com is not able to handle
User-Agent strings with a length greater than 63 chars. Fails without giving an
error.

-> Evangelism.

Comment 4

[Sean Harding]

Oh boy. That's a good one. I never would have caught that. Thanks!

Comment 5

[neeti]

Changing owner to evangelism

Comment 6

[Blake Ross]

Reassigning evangelism bugs to new owner ([e-mail]).

Comment 7

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

looking for a contact...

Comment 8

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

They have been contacted and are looking into the situation. Any helpful
comments on how they can diagnose the problem with their server would be
appreciated.

Comment 9

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

From the administrator of the otap.oscar.aol.com server:
<quote>
The limitation of the user-agent field is presently 128 characters,
which I will widen to 256 for the next maintenance release.

However, the Netscape 6.1 user-agent field (88 chars) still does not
exceed the 128 char limit.

I've downloaded the NS 6.1 client, and it seems to work fine for me. 

Do you have any other information that I can use to localize this
problem?  

</quote>

Can anyone who has seen this problem please reply so that we can determine what
the problem is and if it still exists?

Comment 10

[Andreas M. "Clarence" Schneider]

This seems to be fixed. The limit for the user-agent string is now 126 chars,
which should be enough for Mozilla. I cannot see any further problem, but I have
no AIM login to test.

BTW, if a server cannot handle a request because of internal limitations, it
should not time out, but send a 500 (Internal Server Error) error message.

Comment 11

[David Illsley]

This does now seem to work. I can login using my AIM ID.

Comment 12

[Andreas M. "Clarence" Schneider]

Marking FIXED.

Comment 13

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

All Evangelism Bugs are now in the Product Tech Evangelism. See bug 86997 for
details.

Comment 14

[Brant Gurganus]

Verified
2002022703/WinXP