896253 - New HTTP authentication request for in-progress authentication should focus the existing prompt

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: Networking: HTTP, defect, P5)

Description

[Jan Pokorný]

[originally filed as https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=986373]

Just happened to me and lead me to think that the site in question
is down... "Behaves misleadingly" in the summary means that such access
will be loading infinitely until the auth dialog that belongs to the
other Firefox window (and blocking it as it is modal) is proceeded.

Thanks to being modal, this is not the case with a single window
(the dialog won't let you do anything else), but the problem emerges
with more windows.

I would expect the tabs at the other windows (i.e., the ones that
does not own the auth dialog but are blocked by the one existing
at the other window) to either bring the original dialog to front
(preferred) or at least display something like "HTTP authentication
pending", not to present infinite page load misleading the user to
think there is something wrong with the site.

This should be even greater concern if auth dialog is not window-modal
(current state) but rather tab-modal [bug 613785].  One could then get
lost about what is going on with the infinite load even with a single
window opened (common).

I expect that globally modal dialog (i.e., atop all FF windows)
-- also a possible solution -- would clash with the heading towards
tab-modal dialog as per [bug 613785].

firefox-22.0-1.fc18.x86_64

Comment 1

[Jan Pokorný]

Sidenote: having more windows opened was not desired, but a consequence
of equally annoying [bug 489729] and extension [3] seems to be of no help;
probably because I am using TreeStyleTab and bug489729 extension
declared incompatibility with that, unfortunately.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/bug489729-disable-detach-and-t/versions/

Comment 2

[Josh Matthews [:jdm]]

Relevant snippets:
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/netwerk/protocol/http/nsHttpChannel.cpp#1411 - where we deal with NS_ERROR_IN_PROGRESS by suspending the pump
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/netwerk/protocol/http/nsHttpChannelAuthProvider.cpp#518 - where we notice that we're waiting for a result and pause further challenge processing

Comment 3

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Bulk change to priority: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1399258