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addons.mozilla.org redirects to about:blank when loaded in a frame

  • 1 reply
  • 6 have this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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If I make a file on my hard drive as follows:

< html>

<title>addons.mozilla.org in frames</title>

<frameset cols="50%,50%">

   <frame src=

"http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/13564/">

   <frame src=

"http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2313/">

</frameset>

</html>

... and then open this file in Firefox, the frames seem to be redirected to about:blank. That is, if I right-click in one of the frames and choose This Frame > View Frame Source, the titlebar of the resulting window says "Source of: about:blank."

The desired operation of Firefox is that the target page should not redirect to about:blank, but should be displayed within the frame.

I loaded one of the target URLs (addons.mozilla.org) in its own browser window and viewed the source. I wanted to find out whether the page might have contained some JavaScript that redirected the browser to about:blank if the page was loaded in a frame. But Firefox's Find function did not locate either the text "frame" or the text "about:blank."

I did a search in Bugzilla for just "frame about:blank," which returned over 34000 bugs. I sorted by ID and looked at the summary lines of the most recent few hundred bugs, but none seemed to match the problem I'm having.

The problem did not happen until I upgraded from a recent prior version of Firefox (3.6.8?) to 3.6.12.

When the addons.mozilla.org pages in question are loaded in their own browser windows, they redirect to HTTPS. So I tried using frames to load some other HTTPS sites, which loaded fine in frames.

I appreciate your help.

If I make a file on my hard drive as follows: '''< html>''' '''<title>addons.mozilla.org in frames</title>''' '''<frameset cols="50%,50%">''' '''<frame src= "http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/13564/">''' '''<frame src= "http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2313/">''' '''</frameset>''' '''</html>''' ... and then open this file in Firefox, the frames seem to be redirected to about:blank. That is, if I right-click in one of the frames and choose This Frame > View Frame Source, the titlebar of the resulting window says "Source of: about:blank." The desired operation of Firefox is that the target page should not redirect to about:blank, but should be displayed within the frame. I loaded one of the target URLs (addons.mozilla.org) in its own browser window and viewed the source. I wanted to find out whether the page might have contained some JavaScript that redirected the browser to about:blank if the page was loaded in a frame. But Firefox's Find function did not locate either the text "frame" or the text "about:blank." I did a search in Bugzilla for just "frame about:blank," which returned over 34000 bugs. I sorted by ID and looked at the summary lines of the most recent few hundred bugs, but none seemed to match the problem I'm having. The problem did not happen until I upgraded from a recent prior version of Firefox (3.6.8?) to 3.6.12. When the addons.mozilla.org pages in question are loaded in their own browser windows, they redirect to HTTPS. So I tried using frames to load some other HTTPS sites, which loaded fine in frames. I appreciate your help.

Modified by dg1727

All Replies (1)

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You can't load most Mozilla.com pages in a frame anymore.

Firefox 3.6.9 and later support the x-frame-options header.
The Mozilla servers send that as x-frame-options: DENY in the HTTP response headers.
That makes it impossible to load such pages in a frame or iframe and you see an about:blank page instead.

See: http://michael-coates.blogspot.com/2010/08/x-frame-option-support-in-firefox.html https://developer.mozilla.org/en/The_X-FRAME-OPTIONS_response_header

Modified by cor-el