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IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0002252NetSurf[All Projects] Generalpublic2016-11-22 21:54
ReporterChris Young 
Assigned ToChris Young 
SeverityminorReproducibilitysometimes 
StatusclosedResolutionfixed 
PlatformAmigaOSAmigaOSOS Version4.1
Product Version3.3 
Target VersionFixed in Version3.6 
Summary0002252: Server returned nothing when posting >~550bytes
DescriptionI get the following error when posting about more than 550 bytes in the Digital Spy forums:
Server returned nothing (no headers, no data)

This appears after an apparent timeout waiting for data to be received back.
Steps To ReproduceVisit forums.digitalspy.co.uk (you will need an account)
Start or reply to an existing thread with more than 550 characters
Click "preview post" or "go advanced" (this causes the same error as submitting, but without actually starting a thread)
Additional InformationThis seems to happen quite consistently, although when I was trying to reproduce to get a log file with the curl debug I couldn't reproduce it (it has happened again since). If I can get a log I'll add it.
I'm unable to reproduce on the GTK or Windows versions of NetSurf at this time, or on any other website. It seems quite isolated but this was definitely working last year (November?). I've tried updating to libcurl 7.40 but it hasn't made any difference.
TagsNo tags attached.
Fixed in CI build #3751
Reported in CI build #2514
URL of problem pagehttp://forums.digitalspy.co.uk
Attached Files

-Relationships
+Relationships

-Notes
Chris Young

~0000567

Chris Young (developer)

Log attached - Contains a couple of successes and then a failure (as I added more and more text to produce the issue).

The key failure part is this:
* Connection died, retrying a fresh connect
* Closing connection 0
* Issue another request to this URL: 'http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/newthread.php?do=postthread&f=108'
* Found bundle for host forums.digitalspy.co.uk: 0x570519f8
* Connection 10 seems to be dead!
* Closing connection 10
* Hostname was NOT found in DNS cache
* Trying 54.154.112.81...
* Connected to forums.digitalspy.co.uk (54.154.112.81) port 80 (#21)
> POST /newthread.php?do=postthread&f=108 HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: NetSurf/3.3 (AmigaOS)
Host: forums.digitalspy.co.uk
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip
Referer: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/newthread.php?do=postthread&f=108
Cookie: bblastvisit=1417044682; bblastactivity=0; bbuserid=xxxx; bbpassword=xxxxxxxxxxxxx; DSid=7329%3A4ae4f30b0cfb624dca3aaaa097c6ddd0; hearst_id=66379000; bbsessionhash=492ca0a0361c465e1320eed1262516de
Accept-Language: en-GB, en, *;q=0.1
DNT: 1
Content-Length: 906
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

* upload completely sent off: 906 out of 906 bytes
* Empty reply from server
* Connection #21 to host forums.digitalspy.co.uk left intact
(204.103683) content/fetchers/curl.c fetch_curl_done 838: done http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/newthread.php?do=postthread&f=108
(204.103876) content/fetchers/curl.c fetch_curl_done 876: Unknown cURL response code 52
(204.103926) content/fetchers/curl.c fetch_curl_stop 703: fetch 0x55a45fd0, url 'http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/newthread.php?do=postthread&f=108'
(204.137399) amiga/misc.c ami_misc_req 54: Server returned nothing (no headers, no data)


I suspect "Unknown cURL response code 52" might be the key.
Chris Young

~0000568

Chris Young (developer)

A quick Google reveals this (old) message: http://curl.haxx.se/mail/archive-2002-04/0042.html

In that case the server was segfaulting, so it might be the same problem here, in which case we won't be able to do much about it, unless we are sending something weird to the server.
Vincent Sanders

~0000619

Vincent Sanders (administrator)

well the curl error is CURLE_GOT_NOTHING (52) in general our handling of curl error codes is very poor.
Chris Young

~0000837

Chris Young (developer)

I've had a nose around with Wireshark to try and figure out what is going on. It appears when the "nothing received" error appears, NetSurf has not even attempted to send the request. I've attached the logs for the failure [wireshark_ds.pcapng] and the log for a working request (ie. with much shorter input) [wireshark_ds_working.pcapng]
Chris Young

~0000839

Chris Young (developer)

Looking at Curl, it appears that it handles posts >1K slightly differently, which would explain why adding extra characters suddenly stops it working. this is the relevant excerpt from curl http.c:

---8<---
    /* For really small posts we don't use Expect: headers at all, and for
       the somewhat bigger ones we allow the app to disable it. Just make
       sure that the expect100header is always set to the preferred value
       here. */
    ptr = Curl_checkheaders(conn, "Expect:");
    if(ptr) {
      data->state.expect100header =
        Curl_compareheader(ptr, "Expect:", "100-continue");
    }
    else if(postsize > TINY_INITIAL_POST_SIZE || postsize < 0) {
      result = expect100(data, conn, req_buffer);
      if(result)
        return result;
    }
    else
      data->state.expect100header = FALSE;
---8<---

As this appears to be related to Expect: 100-continue, I tried removing the line in NetSurf which disables that header. I'm now getting an HTTP 100 Continue response from the server, but of course NetSurf doesn't know what to do with it.

I'm thinking the bug might be in libcurl, where with >1K posts the non-Expect:100 behaviour isn't working correctly.
Chris Young

~0001416

Chris Young (developer)

I have no idea what has changed or when, but this is working now.
Vincent Sanders

~0001422

Vincent Sanders (administrator)

this issue has been closed because it is included in the 3.6 release
+Notes

-Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
2015-01-10 17:46 Chris Young New Issue
2015-01-13 19:18 Chris Young File Added: ns.log.gz
2015-01-13 19:21 Chris Young Note Added: 0000567
2015-01-13 19:27 Chris Young Note Added: 0000568
2015-01-16 09:05 Vincent Sanders Status new => acknowledged
2015-01-16 09:05 Vincent Sanders Description Updated View Revisions
2015-01-16 09:05 Vincent Sanders Steps to Reproduce Updated View Revisions
2015-01-16 09:05 Vincent Sanders Additional Information Updated View Revisions
2015-03-01 16:13 Vincent Sanders Note Added: 0000619
2015-04-26 13:00 Chris Young File Added: wireshark_ds_working.pcapng
2015-04-26 13:01 Chris Young File Added: wireshark_ds.pcapng
2015-04-26 13:03 Chris Young Note Added: 0000837
2015-04-26 13:14 Chris Young File Deleted: wireshark_ds_working.pcapng
2015-04-26 13:15 Chris Young File Deleted: wireshark_ds.pcapng
2015-04-26 13:15 Chris Young File Added: wireshark.7z
2015-04-26 14:14 Chris Young Note Added: 0000839
2016-11-14 19:08 Chris Young Fixed in CI build # => 3751
2016-11-14 19:08 Chris Young Note Added: 0001416
2016-11-14 19:08 Chris Young Status acknowledged => resolved
2016-11-14 19:08 Chris Young Fixed in Version => 3.6
2016-11-14 19:08 Chris Young Resolution open => fixed
2016-11-14 19:08 Chris Young Assigned To => Chris Young
2016-11-22 21:54 Vincent Sanders Note Added: 0001422
2016-11-22 21:54 Vincent Sanders Status resolved => closed
+Issue History