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Firefox gets "locked" on a URL when accessing my web application

  • 7 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 11 views
  • Last reply by troiter

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http://screencast.com/t/Xr662nAr

In this screencast you can see I go to my web application and once I'm there, I can no longer move out of that URL in that tab. No matter what I type in or click any links, the browser takes me right back to where I was. This is causing a bad experience for any clients using firefox with my application.

The application works fine in chrome, so I know this is a firefox bug and I wanted to bring it to your attention.

http://screencast.com/t/Xr662nAr In this screencast you can see I go to my web application and once I'm there, I can no longer move out of that URL in that tab. No matter what I type in or click any links, the browser takes me right back to where I was. This is causing a bad experience for any clients using firefox with my application. The application works fine in chrome, so I know this is a firefox bug and I wanted to bring it to your attention.

All Replies (7)

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Very odd!

I assume you can open a new tab in the window (Ctrl+t or click the "+" button on the tab bar), and the un-leavable page problem is limited to that tab, is that right?

Does your page hook into any of these events:

  • beforeunload
  • pagehide
  • unload

If you check Firefox's Browser Console (Ctrl+Shift+j) are there any odd messages associated with this behavior? It may be helpful to open the console, click the garbage can to clear it, then try the navigation and check the new messages that collect. (You can ignore the style warnings marked with a blue triangle, those are unlikely to be relevant.)

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Indeed very odd. Yes, you are correct, that the other tabs are unaffected. It's just that tab. I don't see any errors or weird messages at all. We don't have any of our code using any of those event handlers, but we are using jquery and datatables.

Any way I can further debug this with some more helpful information? Maybe give someone on the mozilla team access to the application so they can troubleshoot? I would like to help you resolve this.

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I can take a look at it. But I'm a volunteer with limited web dev experience, not a Mozilla employee or professional developer. Others may respond to the call who could do a better job.

Meanwhile, what about other methods of navigation away from the page. Do any of these work:

  • Bookmark on the bookmarks menu or toolbar
  • History menu entry
  • Search bar (not address bar)

I suppose I'm asking: is the problem specific to using the address bar, which could indicate a problem with the new design in Firefox 48.

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Do you have a live test example set up so that "we" can see what's going on first-hand?

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@jscher2000 -- it's not limited to the address bar. Clicking our logout link doesn't work either. That hits our authentication server to erase the cookies and redirect back.

@the-edmeister -- I can set you up with a login/password and live URL, but obviously via some more private channel.

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Hi troiter, you can send private messages to support volunteers by first clicking their usernames next to their posts. Obviously don't let us spend real money.

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Haha, why not? Maybe you'll find out you're good at the stock market and your life will be forever changed. ;)

It's a demo environment, no real money or orders go out. All simulated on the back-end. :) Is there anyone out there who's intimate with the firefox codebase that wants to help fix this issue? I can send you a private message with a login/password.