Comments on: NSURLConnection Crashing Antidote

By: Dave MacLachlan

Dave MacLachlan — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:46:02 +0000

For folks trying to get NSURLConnection bugs to appear, I have had great luck with the _debug frameworks causing bugs in NSURLConnection to appear (https://connect.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MemberSite.woa/wa/getSoftware?bundleID=19915). You have to be an ADC member. Unfortunately I think we will need a new one with Daniel’s fix in it to be sure we’re not seeing his bug. I will file a Radar. Justin, this may help you out though.

By: John McLaughlin

John McLaughlin — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:03:19 +0000

It’s quite possible that the security aspects of this are as real as Apple outlined but here is what it sounds like to me:

Someone at Apple was embarassed about the problem (or generally agrees that it’s unacceptable to have a problem like this exist) and wanted to fix it. However his boss said “Security fixes only” so voila — this becomes a ’security problem’ (which means ‘it can now be fixed’)

I see this at my work all the time — Management decides how/what they want to do but individuals who care deeply see what *needs* to be done and they figure out a way to make it work within the system.

By: Paul D. Waite

Paul D. Waite — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:32:06 +0000

And even if a bug has been reported, it might not have been reported well. A bug report that’s isolated the bug and provided clear steps to reproduce it can save a bunch of time on the developer’s end, reducing the cost of fixing it.

By: Paul McCann

Paul McCann — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:36:29 +0000

I saw an occurrence of the 10.5 NSURLConnection problem this afternoon, when I attempted to get TextMate to update through an authenticating proxy server on a new machine I was setting up. At least I imagine it’s using https to get at the new versions. In any case Old Faithful spewed forth onto my shiny new screen…

As per the 10.4 version of this problem, once the error kicks in it’s a difficult beast to get rid of.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:57:43 +0000

Thanks for the feedback… FWIW, it is the combination of HTTPS, a proxy, and HTTP authentication using asynchronous NSURLConnection that does it, and not all the time. I’ll be sure to blog it up if/when I can get to the bottom of it.

By: Conor

Conor — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:09:49 +0000

Congratulations, getting more famous everyday.

By: Daniel Jalkut

Daniel Jalkut — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:55:19 +0000

I haven’t heard anything like that Justin, but I don’t think there are all that many people using HTTPS + Proxy and MarsEdit. I know some people using HTTPS without a proxy, and that doesn’t seem to be an issue.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:27:31 +0000

This is great, and congrats! FWIW, there is still (to my knowledge) a crasher in Leopard, though, with NSURLConnection, that is related to HTTPS + auth, and I think a separate one involving HTTPS + auth + proxies. My bug report was marked as a dupe, though, and I can’t check on the status of the original. I know we talked about this before, but have you seen any issues with folks using HTTPS + MarsEdit? There have to be some folks out there using MarsEdit for secure sites behind password protection.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:38:10 +0000

Nice. I routinely cruise security update notes looking for credit shouts from Apple and when I saw your name I took note. Oh so nerdy…

By: Sengan

Sengan — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:44:41 +0000

Thanks for reporting this, Daniel. I’ve seen it too.