issue509: downloads impossible

Priority: bug Status: chatting
Messages
msg1321 (view) Author: tomas Date: 2016-07-06.10:36:16
Again, downloading files does not work. But this time, it's more serious: When following an url that
points to a file, the browser crashes. Thus downloads are impossible.

The problem arises with the newest version of firefox: 47.0. Regretfully, the behavior is the same when
replacing firefox with palemoon. Otherwise, I use archlinux and conkeror-git 160130.1.20.g9f2b548-1.
There is no message in the console.

Any help would definitely be appreciated.
msg1322 (view) Author: tomas Date: 2016-07-06.19:00:21
The problem is that the mime types of files that are to be downloaded are not detected correctly.

E.g., a pdf file can be downloaded with the "save" command, but the file name gets the extension "html".
Also the "shell-command-on-file" works, you may type in a pdf viewer manually. Hence it seems that when
following a link to a pdf file, conkeror assumes it is a html page, tries to display it as a webpage, and
crashes.

Anybody knows how conkeror determines the mime types? Maybe some external program or service is used for
this purpose?
msg1324 (view) Author: madalu Date: 2016-07-08.19:44:11
I cannot replicate this. I'm using archlinux, firefox 47.0.1-1, and conkeror-git 1.0.3.r11.g66bcc3f-1.

With the default configuration (i.e., no .conkerorrc) saving and opening pdf files with external programs
works just fine.

Conkeror uses firefox's mimeservice api to determine mime types:

https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-beta/source/netwerk/mime/nsIMIMEService.idl

AFAICT, that hasn't been changed recently.
msg1325 (view) Author: tomas Date: 2016-07-08.20:40:56
The case remains completely mysterious ...

My configuration is exactly the same (archlinux, firefox 47.0.1-1, and conkeror-git
1.0.3.r11.g66bcc3f-1), I do not use any .conkerorrc, and I start without the .conkeror.mozdev.org
directory. To repeat the story with a specific example: I visit http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.06973, I click
on the link "PDF", which points to the pdf-file http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.06973v1, and conkeror crashes.
I may instead press "s" ("save"), choose that same pdf-file, and download it -- and its name will be
"1604.html". The erroneous extension "html" is of course added by the browser.

Always downloading a file instead of following the link to it is, unfortunately, no solution. For
instance, when visiting pages with an embedded pdf, conkeror used to show a black area where the pdf is
supposed to be shown, now it crashes immediately when I visit such a page.

Thanks anyhow for the feedback. I guess I will not find out what the problem is, it has occurred since a
couple of days, after a usual upgrade of the system, which included firefox but not conkeror. But as
noticed already, the upgrade of firefox is not likely to be the problem, I have the same behaviour with
firefox 45 and with palemoon.
msg1326 (view) Author: tomas Date: 2016-07-09.20:30:37
Luckily, I finally found the solution. The problem is related to the so-called plugin container. Firefox
had activated a plugin named evince. I simply deactivated it, and everything works as usual.

The annoying point about this: I never installed any plugin for firefox / conkeror other than flash and
vlc. The reason of the above described problems was apparently that, some time ago, I installed evince.
In the sequel, firefox activated the evince plugin. This might have happened when I once tried to open a
ps file under firefox (not conkeror).

I guess this is not a bug of conkeror, but of firefox as well as of palemoon. In firefox, the "evince
plugin" does not work for me either, trying to open a ps file leads to a crash. For palemoon, the same
issue as discussed here is described at https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=214285.
History
Date User Action Args
2016-07-09 20:30:37tomassetmessages: + msg1326
2016-07-08 20:40:56tomassetmessages: + msg1325
2016-07-08 19:44:12madalusetmessages: + msg1324
2016-07-06 19:00:22tomassetstatus: unread -> chatting
messages: + msg1322
2016-07-06 10:37:22tomassetpriority: urgent -> bug
2016-07-06 10:36:16tomascreate