87513 - about:<randomness> doesn't display an error if the about: topic doesn't exist.

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: Networking, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Joe Pranevich]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux 2.4.3-12 i686; en-US; rv:0.9.1)
Gecko/20010608
BuildID:    2001060810

In previous versions of Netscape, going to about:foo would display an error page
(or, well... something *like* an error page) if the about: topic didn't exist.
In Mozilla .9.1, no page is displayed and the browser continues to display the
previous valid page.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Go to a page that works. http://www.mozilla.org
2.Type about:foobar in the URL bar


Actual Results:  No change to the page.

Expected Results:  An error page of some sort be displayed. Netscape 4.x printed
a Gary Coleman quote, for example.

Comment 1

[Tim Powell]

I'd also noticed this just the other day. Netscape 4.something displayed a ?
when the about:word wasn't recognized. And I find it amusing that IE5 also
supports about:urls, most notably about:blank. When IE5 doesn't recognize the
keyword, it just displays it. So about:random displays a page with just random
on it.

The one reason I'd argue for changing the behavior from what it is now, is for
user feedback. When you type something like about:foo, it'd be nice if Mozilla
did *something*. At the moment it's as if it didn't get the input. Of course,
that may be by design, so changing severity to enhancement.

This is OS All; I see it on Win2k with 2001062204.

Comment 2

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 56061, make about:about display a list of about: pages.  The error 
page for about:foo should include or link to this list.

-> networking

Comment 3

[benc]

This is probably yet another example of how bug 19073 affects seemingly everything.

Comment 4

[Aaron Kaluszka]

1. Netscape possibly later 1.x,2.x,3.x,4.x (Windows) did what IE does now for 
about:foo
this was bug 63198 and was marked WONTFIX because some people apparently like 
data: only now :(

2. Netscape later 0.9x and earlier 1.x (and 2.x,3.x,4.x Linux) 
displayed "Whatchew talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

3.Netscape earlier 0.9x popped up a dialog that said "Malformed URL"

One of these options is better than nothing.
fyi, IE has gone as far as to implement about:mozilla to be a blank blue screen.

Comment 5

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Bugs targeted at mozilla1.0 without the mozilla1.0 keyword moved to mozilla1.0.1 
(you can query for this string to delete spam or retrieve the list of bugs I've 
moved)

Comment 6

[Doug Turner (:dougt)]

moving neeti's futured bugs for triaging.

Comment 7

[benc]

-> defaults.

Comment 8

[Adam Becevello]

*** Bug 280257 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[benc]

This isn't really a networking thing, right? it is an about: protocol handler thing.

Why don't we ask those FE types, like Neil to look at this?

Comment 10

[[e-mail]]

Apparently about:<randomness> returns an error of factory creation failed, which
isn't a really meaningful error code. I'd be happy for the about protocol
handler to return an error code, e.g. malformed uri, known to the doc shell. By
all means implement a new error code if you feel one is necessary.

Comment 11

[Josh Birnbaum]

*** Bug 307170 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: Simple fix

Comment 13

[Darin Fisher]

Comment on attachment 195365 [details] [diff] [review]
Simple fix

sr=darin

Comment 14

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Fixed.

Comment 15

[benc]

V/fixed.

I get a "URL invalid and cannot be loaded" error.

Comment 16

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

*** Bug 330625 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 17

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

Comment on attachment 195365 [details] [diff] [review]
Simple fix

seems like a nice-to-have bugfix for 1.8 to me

Comment 18

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

fixed on MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH
Checking in netwerk/protocol/about/src/nsAboutProtocolHandler.cpp;
/cvsroot/mozilla/netwerk/protocol/about/src/nsAboutProtocolHandler.cpp,v  <--  nsAboutProtocolHandler.cpp
new revision: 1.39.2.3; previous revision: 1.39.2.2
done

Comment 19

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

*** Bug 353939 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***