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Some (but not all) links from an external application fail.

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  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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Certain links from an external application are failing to open in Firefox (but open fine when IE is the default browser instead). This problem was occurring in the 3-point-something version I was previously running, as well as in the 6.0 I'm running now. If Firefox is not running when I click the external link I receive an error dialog "There was a problem sending the command to the program." Otherwise, it fails silently.

The links are being provided by an RSS feed in an external reader. Recently the feed changed the formatting for their URLs.

The links that work look like: http://catalog.spl.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=dial&full=3100001~!2725646~!6

The links that do not work look like: http://catalog.spl.org?profile=dial&view=items&uri=full=3100001~!2732159~!2&term="Science fiction."

I'm not clear on whether the problem is the lack of a / between the hostname & the query string (an RFC violation, but one that Firefox handles if the URL is just pasted into the address box) or something else. I have also contacted the maintainers of the RSS feed, but would like some more input onto whether this is actually the problem (and, if there's a way I can fix it on my end, in case there's not speedy change on the part of the folks generating the feed).

Certain links from an external application are failing to open in Firefox (but open fine when IE is the default browser instead). This problem was occurring in the 3-point-something version I was previously running, as well as in the 6.0 I'm running now. If Firefox is not running when I click the external link I receive an error dialog "There was a problem sending the command to the program." Otherwise, it fails silently. The links are being provided by an RSS feed in an external reader. Recently the feed changed the formatting for their URLs. The links that work look like: http://catalog.spl.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=dial&full=3100001~!2725646~!6 The links that do not work look like: http://catalog.spl.org?profile=dial&view=items&uri=full=3100001~!2732159~!2&term="Science fiction." I'm not clear on whether the problem is the lack of a / between the hostname & the query string (an RFC violation, but one that Firefox handles if the URL is just pasted into the address box) or something else. I have also contacted the maintainers of the RSS feed, but would like some more input onto whether this is actually the problem (and, if there's a way I can fix it on my end, in case there's not speedy change on the part of the folks generating the feed).

Modified by sevoo

Chosen solution

Maybe the quoted search term with embedded spaces is causing the problem: &term="Science fiction."

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Well, I got the feed maintainer to bring their links one step closer to compliance with RFC 1738 and it hasn't helped -- now Firefox is failing on links from external applications that look like http://catalog.spl.org/?profile=dial&view=items&uri=full=3100001~!2734698~!5&term="Science fiction." but working with ones that look like http://catalog.spl.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=dial&full=3100001~!2730013~!9

I *have* managed to find a related error in the error console which I'd previously overlooked:

Error: [Exception... "'Abort' when calling method: [nsICommandLineValidator::validate]" nsresult: "0x80004004 (NS_ERROR_ABORT)" location: "<unknown>" data: no]

What is it about my non-working URL up there that's failing to validate?

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Chosen Solution

Maybe the quoted search term with embedded spaces is causing the problem: &term="Science fiction."