My Browser Builds (Part 4)

[mina7601]

Even then, I'm unable to replicate the issue @Mathwiz reported with Serpent 55 2023.10.26 build. I tried to download 7-Zip installer (both EXE & MSI), and they never gave me the "open file" option, only the "save file" option.

Edited November 17, 2023 by mina7601

[VistaLover]

On 11/17/2023 at 2:55 AM, mina7601 said:

I tried to download 7-Zip installer (both EXE & MSI), and
they never gave me the "open file" option, only the "save file" option.

@roytam1: Possibly related and it is indeed a serious regression: the "about:preferences#applications" internal browser tab ends up empty in latest versions of both St52/St55, thus the user can no longer customise the default browser actions related to the content-type of downloads ; below is a screengrab from a fresh St52 profile:

Additionally, though NM28 doesn't have an "about:preferences#applications" internal browser tab, the corresponding "Preferences -> Applications" window exhibits the very same bug : 

So, this is probably a platform (rather than an application) bug, which has to be identified and mitigated...
It's very early in the morning in my timezone, apologies but I can't present to you at this time a regression window ...
Hoping for an easy fix (fingers crossed) ...

Edited November 19, 2023 by VistaLover

[roytam1]

2 hours ago, VistaLover said:

Possibly related and it is indeed a serious regression: the "about:preferences#applications" internal browser tab ends up empty in latest versions of both St52/St55, thus the user can no longer customise the default browser actions related to the content-type of downloads ; below is a screengrab from a fresh St52 profile:

problem is: I can't reproduce this.

if you can get an empty application list, please check if there is any error message in error console.

[Mathwiz]

9 hours ago, VistaLover said:

the 7-zip installer comes in two varieties, EXE & MSI, so it would be helpful to clarify which

My example was the .exe installer on the main page, but I ran into the bug regardless of the file type being downloaded.

3 hours ago, mina7601 said:

Even then, I'm unable to replicate the issue @Mathwiz reported with Serpent 55 2023.10.26 build. I tried to download 7-Zip installer (both EXE & MSI), and they never gave me the "open file" option, only the "save file" option.

Sorry; it wasn't entirely clear. It's actually the "Open with" option, although, when downloading an .exe, the program to be used to "open" the file is blank:

Then click the "Save File" button. The file will download to your temporary files folder and then be "opened" (run, in the case of an .exe).

9 hours ago, VistaLover said:

I think it's a bad practice to let the browser run executables; if it's installer packages, I strongly prefer to first "properly" download to disk and then archive them; many a times I've been bitten by a new application "update" that broke things for me and had to restore the previous version via its archived setup (often times no longer retrievable from the vendor); as for the actual installation step, I tend to exit all not-needed apps (including browsers) and then manually launch the setup

That is certainly "best practice" and should be followed if there's any doubt, but with reasonably trustworthy sites like 7-zip.org, I've learned that one can safely get away with a few "shortcuts." With 7-Zip it's not actually necessary to close all other apps, including the browser, before installing; therefore one can have the browser run the installer and disaster won't strike.

The trick, of course, is to know when it's safe to do this, and when it's more risky - and I don't have a perfect record on this myself!

At any rate, as I mentioned, this bug wasn't limited to executables; that just happened to be the (perhaps ill-advised) example I gave to reproduce it.

[VistaLover]

On 11/17/2023 at 6:17 AM, roytam1 said:

problem is: I can't reproduce this.

... I'm so frustrated to hear about this ... The issue I reported (empty "Applications" tab/window) happens on ALL of my roytam1 browsers here (St55/St52/NM28); all these are the latest 32-bit releases, OS is (as has always been the case ) Windows Vista SP2 x86; can other MSFN members try this, too?

On 11/17/2023 at 6:17 AM, roytam1 said:

if you can get an empty application list

... "Can get" ? It's always empty for me here

On 11/17/2023 at 6:17 AM, roytam1 said:

please check if there is any error message in error console.

Sure; below a screengrab and copied text from latest NM28 (32-bit):

Timestamp: 17/11/2023 13:56:21
Error: NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE: Component returned failure code: 0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE) [nsIMIMEService.getFromTypeAndExtension]
Source File: chrome://browser/content/preferences/applications.js
Line: 1064

... Hope it's useful to you ...

Edited December 14, 2023 by VistaLover

[AstroSkipper]

In the most recent version of New Moon 28, 2023-11-10, both, the application and the download window, is working and showing entries. Here are two screenshots taken from New Moon 28 (2023-11-10):





Therefore, regarding New Moon 28, I can't confirm the issue in my very old profile as described by @VistaLover. I will also have a look when creating a new profile.

Cheers, AstroSkipper

Edited November 17, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[AstroSkipper]

Using a more recent profile, the download window in New Moon 28 (2023-11-10) looks like in the following screenshot:



I did not choose to open anything, of course. Unfortunately, there is no option in this window or entry in the Applications window to set the default action when downloading an executable file. 

Edited November 17, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, AstroSkipper said:

In the most recent version of New Moon 28, 2023-11-10, both, the application and the download window, is working and showing entries. Here are two screenshots taken from New Moon 28 (2023-11-10):





Therefore, regarding New Moon 28, I can't confirm this issue in my very old profile as described by @VistaLover. I will also have a look when creating a new profile.

Cheers, AstroSkipper

And when trying to download an exe file in my very old profile, the download window looks like in this screenshot:



Cheers, AstroSkipper

Edited November 17, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[mina7601]

4 hours ago, VistaLover said:

can other MSFN members try this, too?

Well, no empty Applications list here on Serpent 52 version 2023-11-10 and Serpent 55 version 2023.11.10.

[AstroSkipper]

And in Serpent 52 (2023-11-10), the download window is definitely not resized as it should :



Sometimes, it is rendered correctly, but mostly not. @roytam1 Can you have a look into that? And is the content of this window as to be expected? 

Cheers, AstroSkipper

Edited November 17, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[VistaLover]

On 11/17/2023 at 2:11 PM, VistaLover said:

The issue I reported (empty "Applications" tab/window) happens on ALL of my roytam1 browsers here (St55/st52/NM28)

Thanks to @AstroSkipper (& @mina7601, who came in second ) for his input on the "blank" applications NM28 preferences window; this led me to further investigation on my system...

I discovered that several other portable browser installations on my system exhibit the same bug/issue, including FxESR 52.9.1, so this is probably a system-wide change that causes this...

At first I thought something had gone awry in my system, e.g. a registry corruption or some Windows service having been broken/disabled or needing a stop/restart...

Then, being more calm, I thought of what applications I installed globally in the recent past and turns out it was an update to Java RE 8 (version 8u391). JRE8 has long been deprecated for the Windows XP SP3 OS, with jre-8u152-windows-i586.exe being the last XP-compatible installer...

On Vista SP2 x86, the last version that will install out-of-the-box is jre-8u361-windows-i586.exe; however, I did manage to install later versions 8u361 -> 8u371 -> 8u381 -> 8u391 via a "hack", which is OT for this thread ...

JRE8 comes with an NPAPI plugin and its up-to-date version (Next Generation Java plugin 11.391.2 for Mozilla browsers) displays properly inside about:plugins (St52):

as well as in "about:addons => plugins"; however, when the state of this NPAPI plugin is set to "Ask to Activate"/"Always Activate", the blank Applications tab issue manifests itself ; switch it to "Never Activate", restart the browser and then the Applications tab will populate with content!

I'm short for time now, but I'll have to investigate if previous JRE8 NPAPI plugin versions cause the same problem; @roytam1, given the Error Console I posted above, do you have any remote idea why that issue is caused? FWIW, when the JRE8 plugin is active, test pages like 

https://javatester.org/version.html

https://atcsim.nasa.gov/version/index.html

work as intended (the JRE8 version is correctly detected) ...

Edited December 14, 2023 by VistaLover
thanks to @mina7601, too

[mina7601]

@roytam1 Today's Serpent 52 and Serpent 55 builds crash with the following error:

Edited November 17, 2023 by mina7601

[mina7601]

14 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

Sorry; it wasn't entirely clear. It's actually the "Open with" option, although, when downloading an .exe, the program to be used to "open" the file is blank:

Then click the "Save File" button. The file will download to your temporary files folder and then be "opened" (run, in the case of an .exe).

Of course it will be blank, what else will Windows use to open executables?  

Jokes aside, thanks for the information. I did exactly as you said in the report in the 2023.10.26 build, but the download doesn't freeze to me, and it doesn't show 0 bytes in the temporary directory, either.

Edited November 17, 2023 by mina7601

[AstroSkipper]

15 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

Sorry; it wasn't entirely clear. It's actually the "Open with" option, although, when downloading an .exe, the program to be used to "open" the file is blank:

Then click the "Save File" button. The file will download to your temporary files folder and then be "opened" (run, in the case of an .exe).

Yep, but in your Download or more precisely Opening dialogue , you have the option to "Do this automatically for files like this from now on". In New Moon 28 and Serpent 52 (2023-11-10), this option doesn't exist anymore for downloading an exe file when using a fresh profile. At the moment, the only way to directly open the Save File dialogue is to add the missing mime application/octet-stream what I have just done and to set then the option Save File manually in the Applications window. I hope this missing option will be restored.

Edited November 17, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[DanR20]

1 hour ago, mina7601 said:

Today's Serpent 52 and Serpent 55 builds crash with the following error:

Same here. If you still have last weeks versions copy in nss3.dll from each into today's versions. That seems to stop the crash until Roy can fix it.