785173 - LinkedIn URL displays some form of auto-refresh that prevents site navigation

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Christopher Arnold]

Attachment: Screenshot of LinkedIn blank "redirecting" message

LinkedIn is behaving strangely on my Firefox and Nightly.  Main site loads.  But if the user clicks on any of the nav elements at the top of the page, the URL starts to do some kind of automated refresh.  The screen goes blank in a "Redirecting" message and the tab flashes repeatedly as attempts to load the URL fail.

For instance, this URL can't load: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs?trk=hb_tab_jobs_top&displayHome=

It happens across all some LinkedIn navigation elements.  But not all of them.  It continues happening even when I disable add-ons.

The error does not happen in Safari.

Comment 1

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Can you reproduce this in safe mode?

Your screenshot appears to show Firefox 13 or older, by the way.

Comment 2

[Christopher Arnold]

Attachment: Safe Mode startup of LinkedIn still experiences URL error

After restarting in safe mode it does appear to still be happening.

Comment 3

[Christopher Arnold]

Attachment: LinkedIn throws the attached error if the user doesn't close the tab

Comment 4

[Christopher Arnold]

Attachment: Nightly can also replicate the bug

Comment 5

[Christopher Arnold]

The bug may be caused by a tracking URL that Linkedin cycles into the redirect, which fails, causing the redirect to launch.  The failed redirect causes a recurring loop to flash between the following two URLs.

https://www.linkedin.com/mbox?trk=COMM_NI&displayMBoxItem=&itemID=I413479474_9
https://www.linkedin.com/mbox?itemID=I413479474_9&displayMBoxItem=&trk=COMM_NI

Is there anything that we know in Firefox privacy settings that prevent tracking URLs from being established by a site?

When I try to access exactly the same links I attempted to load in Firefox, but use Safari instead, the following URL string is generated as I'm redirected successfully.
http://www.linkedin.com/mbox?displayMBoxItem=&itemID=I413479474_9&goback=%2Efps_PBCK_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*2_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_false_1_DR_*1_*51_*1_*51_true_*1_*2_*2_*2_F+S_*2_157247_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&trk=COMM_NI

Is there a possibility that LinkedIn did something tricky in their user tracking that is causing more widespread failures to load?  Or is this likely a single user issue?

Comment 6

[Christopher Arnold]

Anurag found that this error is caused by certain LinkedIn cookies.  Perhaps because the user here was using both Firefox and Nightly.