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Maniphest T9343

returning to task create form after validation error wipes all data in Firefox on Ubuntu
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Description

I found this issue while using FF 40.0.3 on Ubuntu 14.04, but I replicated it on a VM of 15.04 with Firefox 37.0 (default setup for Ubuntu's liveCD). As well as FF 39.0 on Windows 7

  • Logged in as a regular user, go to https://secure.phabricator.com/maniphest/task/create/
  • enter random title and random description (this is irrelevant as we are going to fail to post anyway)
  • as 'Visible To' select 'Space S1: Core' and 'Administrators'
  • as 'Editable By' set 'Administrators'
  • create task (you will be taken to a page with "unhandled exception")
  • press back button in the webbrowser or on your mouse (just go back)
  • done (all the text you entered is most likely gone)

This does not happen in Chromium on Ubuntu, neither does it happen to Chrome on Windows. In those cases your task stays prefilled with data you were trying to submit.

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Event Timeline

strayobject created this task.Sep 4 2015, 1:21 PM
strayobject updated the task description. (Show Details)
strayobject added a project: Maniphest.
strayobject added a subscriber: strayobject.
epriestley added a subscriber: epriestley.Sep 4 2015, 1:44 PM

Ah, I did something wrong earlier and can replicate this in Firefox on OSX (40.0.3).

It does not replicate in Chrome or Safari. It looks like this may be an intentional behavior in Firefox (refusing to cache SSL pages with no-cache headers whatsoever).

We rarely encounter this because most forms handle errors inline. T9132 will handle this specific error in a more standard way. Given that this is an explicit behavioral choice of Firefox, we may not reasonably have an alternate remedy available.

In particular, Firefox apparently explicitly disables its "bfcache" for SSL + no-cache headers:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/1.5/Using_Firefox_1.5_caching

epriestley added a comment.Sep 4 2015, 1:49 PM

A general case of this is:

  • Browse to the "Create New Task" page.
  • Enter some text in the "Title" field (do not submit the form).
  • Click away from the page (for example, by clicking the "Phabricator" logo to return to the home page).
  • Press "Back".

In Safari and Chrome, your title is preserved. In Firefox, it is not. This is just the builtin browser behavior for HTTPS + no-cache sites (i.e., every secure site with authentication on the internet). I think there's nothing we can reasonably do in this case to defuse the possibility of data loss: Firefox may destroy form data if you misclick.

strayobject closed this task as Wontfix.Sep 4 2015, 1:54 PM
strayobject claimed this task.

Thank you for researching this so indepth.

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