Viewing files off line

Firefox Development
#1

I’ve been using Moz://a for at least 20 yrs starting with Netscape 2.0 and now using firefox. Most of this time moz://a did NOT require an internet connection to open completely. I have my home page set to “blank” so it should NOT be forcing firefox to check the internet for a site when coming up.

However, sometime in the last couple of years you changed this and the user has to toggle switch to work off line, or work online. So I am currently set to work online. This allows me to work both online and open files on my computer. HOWEVER, when my internet IS DOWN I CANNOT ACCESS THE FILES ON MY COMPUTER. It appears that firefox is waiting for the internet connection before completely loading.

WHY?

Because of this, I cannot toggle the work Offline as Firefox is NOT up and I can’t get to it the switch.

I’m NOT going to set the switch back to offline before I exit every time. At least I’m pretty sure that I will for get to do this some time or my wife will. So I don’t see this a valid alternative to allow Firefox to completely boot with no internet connection.

Is there a way to set the switch to automatically set to work off link when I close firefox?

If not, can you please drop the requirement for an internet connection before allowing firefox to fully come up? In effect make the default setting be work offline. But why even have it check for an internet connection? I would mind a screen that says “No internet connection at this time”, or something like that if you MUST check for the internet connection. But don’t stay locked in the loop of testing for the internet indefinately. Maybe check 10 or 20 times but why check at all?

If you complete the startup process, and the internet is NOT there, the use will know it when he trys to go someplace and can’t, but they could still access files on their computer. Once Firefox sees the internet, maybe change the color of the bar at the top of the window from say red - no internet connection, to green - you know have internet connection.

Thanks In Advance, and look forward to hearing from you.

JohnT,

John T. Blair WA4OHZ
VA. Beach, VA
jblair1948@cox.net

#2

I’m sorry you are having problems, but I tried to reproduce your issue and failed. I created a new profile, turned off networking on my computer, started Firefox. I was able to open a local file without problem. So it doesn’t appear that the default configuration requires an Internet connection to open a local file.

I’m using Linux, but the Firefox requirements shouldn’t change based on operating system. I don’t have an easy way to test the case where networking is enabled but my Internet provider is having issues.

Could you try making a test profile to see if you can reproduce the issue in that environment? If you can please provide detail steps-to-reproduce so someone can try to duplicate your results.

#3

You should also try Troubleshooting Mode.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode