'Report Attack' window closes with error in 4.2

[daveschaefer]

In Perspectives 4.2 the 'Report Attack' window does not work. Attempting to send a report causes an error which is quickly closed and hard to view.

Repro steps:

• Navigate to any https:// site
• Open the 'Report Attack' Perspectives window
• Type in any information
• Click 'Submit Report'
• The window will pause for 5-15 seconds and then a popup error will suddenly appear. However, the error and the 'Report Attack' window both close quickly afterward. It is difficult to see the error.

[daveschaefer]

With video capture software we can troubleshoot this :) It looks like it's happening on the line

req.send(report_json_str);

The error message is

"Error submitting report: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)" nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://perspectives/content/report.js :: <TOP_LEVEL> :: line 117" data: no]

This may be happening because the POST is being treated as a cross-site-scripting attack, in which case it may have to be fixed on the server.

[daveschaefer]

At the very least, I propose we do not auto-close the window, as this makes things difficult for the user. How about instead we add a 'Close' button to the form so they can deal with any errors, feedback, or other events that occur, and then close the window when they're ready?

Code: 8423f2a2f9c97d7e6437973b8013aa8db4ba0028 Screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/hthmm

[daveschaefer]

Partial improvement to not auto-close the form merged in https://github.com/danwent/Perspectives/pull/54 (thanks Dan!).

[daveschaefer]

The partial improvement has been published but this still isn't fixed. Moving ticket to version 4.4 so we can publish the full fix.

[berendho]

I'm having the same issue at the moment in firefox 29 and perspectives 4.4

Perspectives: Error submitting report: [Exception... "Failure" nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://perspectives/content/report.js :: Pers_report.submit_data :: line 129" data: no]

[daveschaefer]

We have had several more people report this. I think we should outright disable the Report Attack function for now. It seems confusing to display it since we know it will always fail. Let's turn it off until we can get it working again.

We should really make Report Attack send its data securely over https or an encrypted PGP message anyway, so we don't broadcast any sensitive data.

[daveschaefer]

I have created ticket #122 to disable the Report Attack function until we can fix it and make it work properly.

[daveschaefer]

Right now, the certificate for the reporting site ( https://www.networknotary.org/report.php ) has expired, so browsers throw up a certificate warning if you visit the page. That can't be helping. In addition, bypassing the certificate and visiting anyway gives me the error message

"IOError at / [Errno 28] No space left on device"

It looks like the machine needs some love, or we'd have to set up a new one.

I'm not sure what machine that DNS entry points to, and I don't have access to the routing info to check. I think we would need @danwent to rescue the machine, or we would have to set up a new machine to collect the reporting data.

I consider getting client caching and https functionality higher than rescuing reporting functionality, so I won't be working on this right now.