"Print to File" does not create the expected file in non-English locales

"Print to file" works as expected in en_US locales, but on Tails and current Debian unstable with French locales, the expected file is not created although the GUI feedback looks like everything went just fine; reproduced both with the en_US and French version of Tor Browser, so this seems to depend on the locales only.

added AffectsTails TorBrowserTeam201712R component::applications/tor browser owner::pospeselr priority::medium resolution::fixed severity::normal status::closed tbb-7.0-issues tbb-e10s tbb-no-uplift tbb-regression type::defect labels

Trac:
Cc: N/A to intrigeri

Trac:
Keywords: N/A deleted, tbb-regression, tbb-7.0 added

Trac:
Keywords: tbb-7.0 deleted, tbb-7.0-issues added

This feels like basic functionality to me, but I understand that the TBB team has probably higher priority items on their plate. Fine :)

Any hint you folks can share, in case I want to look deeper myself?

Replying to intrigeri:

This feels like basic functionality to me, but I understand that the TBB team has probably higher priority items on their plate. Fine :)

Indeed we have a sponsor deadline in a couple of weeks and most of us are picking items so we meet that one.

Any hint you folks can share, in case I want to look deeper myself?

Are you sure this is a non-en-US-issue? It seems that printing to a file does not work with en-US bundles either for me on Linux. That said does it start working if you disable multiprocess mode by flipping browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2? (It does for me)

Given that it seems to be a multiprocess issue then this might be a good ticket for Richard to work on to get more familiar with another important browser concept and related bugs/issues. (And he is not as bound to the sponsor deadline as other folks from the team)

Richard: Do you think you could put that one onto your plate?

Trac:
Status: new to needs_information
Keywords: N/A deleted, tbb-e10s added
Cc: intrigeri to intrigeri, pospeselr

Yeah sure!

Trac:
Status: needs_information to assigned
Owner: tbb-team to pospeselr

Trac:
Cc: intrigeri, pospeselr to intrigeri, pospeselr, mcs

Trac:
Cc: intrigeri, pospeselr, mcs to intrigeri, pospeselr, mcs, brade

Works on my machine (Ubuntu 17.04, french locale) for both possible value for that property. Will spin up a VM with Debian unstable and see if I can repro there.

intrigeri: can you point me to what page you're trying to print?

For me any page is sufficient. Take for example about:tor. Here is what I did (with an en-US bundle):

1. I opened the hamburger menu in the upper right corner and selected the Print icon.
2. I clicked on the Print... button, selected Print to File, chose a name and clicked on Print.
3. I repeated 2) but no warning dialog appeared (notifying you that you are about to overwrite a file).
4. Upon looking in the directory where the file was supposed to be saved it turns out it was not.
5. Repeating 1) and 2) with multiprocess mode disabled solves it for me.

So those repro steps result in successful printing for me

• Debian Unstable VM (1 core CPU, 4 gigs of RAM, 8 GB disk)
• latest Tor-Browser (version 7.0.5)
• browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 = true
• printing various pages (about:config, slashdot, reddit, etc)

gk: could you perhaps post Tor Browser's debug log output on a failed print?

Replying to pospeselr:

So those repro steps result in successful printing for me

• Debian Unstable VM (1 core CPU, 4 gigs of RAM, 8 GB disk)
• latest Tor-Browser (version 7.0.5)
• browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 = true
• printing various pages (about:config, slashdot, reddit, etc)

gk: could you perhaps post Tor Browser's debug log output on a failed print?

There is not shown much, only

(firefox:3965): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: ../../../../gobject/gsignal.c:3492: signal name 'load_complete' is invalid for instance '0x7f72016908d0' of type 'MaiAtkType139'

but I am not convinced that this indicates what is going on.

That said, you could check if you can reproduce it with Tails. I am wondering, though, what's different on my and Tails' Linux config. I took a vanilla Ubuntu 14.04 which I had on a different machine and I had not issues.

intrigeri: do you have any ideas?

Trac:
Status: assigned to needs_information

Ok, so I've gotten some similar behaviour as expressed in this bug. In latest Tails when attempting to save to the tor-browser folder ( /usr/local/lib/tor-browser ) the print to file functionality seems to fail silently, which makes sense as the amnesia user doesn't have write permissions there. However, the UI does not provide any indication of file write failure. As expected, the multiprocessing option also has no effect in this scenario.

Does this error happen for y'all on 64 or 32-bit? I've been doing all my testing on 64-bit so far.

Replying to pospeselr:

Ok, so I've gotten some similar behaviour as expressed in this bug. In latest Tails when attempting to save to the tor-browser folder ( /usr/local/lib/tor-browser ) the print to file functionality seems to fail silently, which makes sense as the amnesia user doesn't have write permissions there. However, the UI does not provide any indication of file write failure. As expected, the multiprocessing option also has no effect in this scenario.

What happens if you choose a writable path?

Does this error happen for y'all on 64 or 32-bit? I've been doing all my testing on 64-bit so far.

64-bit.

Replying to gk:

Replying to pospeselr:

Ok, so I've gotten some similar behaviour as expressed in this bug. In latest Tails when attempting to save to the tor-browser folder ( /usr/local/lib/tor-browser ) the print to file functionality seems to fail silently, which makes sense as the amnesia user doesn't have write permissions there. However, the UI does not provide any indication of file write failure. As expected, the multiprocessing option also has no effect in this scenario.

What happens if you choose a writable path?

Does this error happen for y'all on 64 or 32-bit? I've been doing all my testing on 64-bit so far.

64-bit.

So, interestingly enough on Tails Tor Browser (version 7.0.6) only seems to be able to write to /home/amnesia/Tor\ Browser. Other valid paths (~, ~/Documents, ~/media/amnesia/Disk) are not writable and any attempt to do so fails silently (including saving an image, saving a web-page, printing). File browser also refuses to even read contents of any folder except for /home/amnesia/Tor\ Browser and Tor Browser's installation directory.

The browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 has no effect one way or the other.

Tor Browser (version 7.0.6) does not exhibit this behaviour on my local install (Ubuntu 17.04), ie I can pretty much read/write anywhere that's consistent with folder permissions. Is Tor Browser in Tails more restricted somehow?

Replying to pospeselr:

Replying to gk:

Replying to pospeselr:

Ok, so I've gotten some similar behaviour as expressed in this bug. In latest Tails when attempting to save to the tor-browser folder ( /usr/local/lib/tor-browser ) the print to file functionality seems to fail silently, which makes sense as the amnesia user doesn't have write permissions there. However, the UI does not provide any indication of file write failure. As expected, the multiprocessing option also has no effect in this scenario.

What happens if you choose a writable path?

Does this error happen for y'all on 64 or 32-bit? I've been doing all my testing on 64-bit so far.

64-bit.

So, interestingly enough on Tails Tor Browser (version 7.0.6) only seems to be able to write to /home/amnesia/Tor\ Browser. Other valid paths (~, ~/Documents, ~/media/amnesia/Disk) are not writable and any attempt to do so fails silently (including saving an image, saving a web-page, printing). File browser also refuses to even read contents of any folder except for /home/amnesia/Tor\ Browser and Tor Browser's installation directory.

The browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 has no effect one way or the other.

Tor Browser (version 7.0.6) does not exhibit this behaviour on my local install (Ubuntu 17.04), ie I can pretty much read/write anywhere that's consistent with folder permissions. Is Tor Browser in Tails more restricted somehow?

Yes, I think so. Did you get anything printed to /home/amnesia/Tor\ Browser? If so, is it working with, say, Tails in French as well?

Yeah pdf gets saved to ~/Tor\ Browser successfully on both en-us and fr skus

Replying to gk:

For me any page is sufficient. Take for example about:tor. Here is what I did (with an en-US bundle):

1. I opened the hamburger menu in the upper right corner and selected the Print icon.
2. I clicked on the Print... button, selected Print to File, chose a name and clicked on Print.
3. I repeated 2) but no warning dialog appeared (notifying you that you are about to overwrite a file).
4. Upon looking in the directory where the file was supposed to be saved it turns out it was not.
5. Repeating 1) and 2) with multiprocess mode disabled solves it for me.

I've tested again with AppArmor fully disabled (removed security=apparmor apparmor=1 from the kernel command line) to make sure it's not involved. I see the same in Tails 3.2 started in French, but if started with the default locale (en_US) 1) and 2) work fine even without disabling multiprocess.