[FIXED] file:/// bookmarks and "home" button now blocked

[DavePlatt]

I've had a hand-edited HTML "home page" for Firefox for quite some time. Its file:/// URL is in my Firefox preferences as my startup home page. This has worked fine - the page comes up when I first start Firefox, and if I open a new tab (configured to come up blank) I can click on the "home" icon in my icon bar and be taken to the right local page.

This just stopped working (Firefox 45.5.0, and NoScript 2.9.5.1). When I launch Firefox, the home page comes up blank. If I click on the "home" icon (on that blank page, or in a new blank tab) nothing at all happens.

I tried typing in the URL manually, and this worked fine.

I created a bookmark for this page, and it was apparently created OK. However, attempting to select this bookmark from a blank tab has no effect - Firefox doesn't navigate. The same lack-of-anything occurs if I try to choose the URL from the Firefox "History" list.

If I bring up the page manually (works OK), click on a link to navigate away (works OK), then clicking on the "back" button does nothing.

It looks as if file:// URLs are blocked from browsing via the "internal" pathways (startup page, home icon, bookmarks, navigation buttons, and history), but are accessible if they are typed manually.

I checked my NoScript whitelist, and confirmed that file:// is listed there (as it has been for a long time).

I tried removing it, and re-adding it. No good.

I disabled NoScript, and everything started working again. Re-enabled NoScript, and the buttons and history and etc. stopped working again.

This was working fine yesterday, and I just saw a NoScript update today, so I'd guess something may have gone amiss with 2.9.5.1.

[Hansl]

Similar here — since the last update to NoScript 2.9.5.1 (presumably) I cannot open anymore local HTML files or for instance images like file:///…image.jpg (linked in HTML or directly via File | Open). This happens with FF 50.0 on different machines, Linux x64 and Windows x64. We use intranet pages with many links to local files and have set up NoScript to allow these local links — those to PDFs and ODTs still do work and open them (in external applications), but not those to images to open in FF.

Have there been any changes in NoScript (or FF) in this respect?

The funny thing is, I have two other 32-bit Linux notebooks with the same FF 50.0 and NoScript 2.9.5.1, one of them also set up for local links, one not — both still do open local HTMLs and images. Please help!

[Giorgio Maone]

I really, really need your help here.
I did not manage to reproduce this (fairly common now, it seems) issue, neither on my regular profile nor in a fresh profile with just NoScript installed.
Therefore I urge you to send me asap (either by private message or by email, your exported configuration file: please open NoScript Options and use the [Export] button on the very bottom of the page.
Thank you!

[Giorgio Maone]

Actually a russian user just gave me by email a possible solution to this sharade:

After autoupdate to NoScript 2.9.5.1 in FireFox ver.50 i can not open my homepage - local html file.
After UNCHECK NoScript Options|Advanced|Allow local links, my homepage - local html file opens good!

Notice that the mentioned option should be completely unrelated to opening file:/// URLs from the browser chrome, so I'm investigating this strange interaction/regression, but in the meanwhile please double check that it is set to its default value (i.e. disabled), because it has very limited (and risky) use cases.

[Giorgio Maone]

Should be fixed in latest development build 2.9.5.2rc1, please check, thanks.

[DavePlatt]

Fix confirmed - thanks very much for the quick response!

[Hansl]

Workaround confirmed — thank you!

@ Giorgio: Was/is NoScript Options|Advanced|Allow local links working again at all?

We do need local File:///…someDocument links from web pages on our intranet web server to our intranet file server.
Since a long time this is disabled in Firefox by default for good security reasons, so we used NoScript's Allow local links setting.
Due to changes in FF 28 this also stopped working (see viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19480 ) so thanks to Giorgio we resorted to set in FF's prefs.js

Code: Select all

user_pref("noscript.policynames", "localfilelinks"); 
user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.checkloaduri.enabled", "allAccess");
user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.sites", "192.168.0.11");
user_pref("capability.policy.policynames", "maonoscript localfilelinks");
user_pref("noscript.excaps", "false"); 

specifically allowing our local server only, which is much safer anyway than globally enabling local links.
NoScript's Allow local links remained checked on two machines and was forgotten… On new setups it wasn't checked so we had now the confusing situation that some machines opened image links within local web pages and others didn't.

Thanks again!