Brave-browser: Wayback 404 notice appears even when page loads overall

[Miyayes]

Description

Wayback 404 notice appears even though the page (or much of the page) loads. Occurs frequently on websites like Reddit, particularly if some component doesn’t fully load (notice the top right component in following screenshot), or a component takes a little longer to saturate with data. However, the overall page loads and does not appear to be an overall "404".

Steps to Reproduce

Navigate directly to a Reddit page such as https://reddit.com/r/BATProject or https://reddit.com/u/SOMEUSERNAME.

Estimate: Occurs up to 10% of the time.

Possible observation (not necessarily reliable): It might occur more frequently when one is browsing the web very intensely and quickly across tabs, or when one requests a page that is not cached by Reddit (e.g., a user's individual comment history).

Brave version (brave://version info)

Version 1.4.96 Chromium: 80.0.3987.132 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Version/Channel Information:

Release channel

Other Additional Information:

uBlock Origin is also installed.

[jonathansampson]

I was able to reproduce this with a few refreshes. The server eventually responded with a 504.

Request URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/
Request Method: GET
Status Code: 504 
Remote Address: 151.101.57.140:443
Referrer Policy: no-referrer-when-downgrade

Maybe nothing more than the Reddit server(s) experiencing a bit of transient load.

[bsclifton]

Wayback status is purely based on the HTTP code returned by the page

Per the spec, here are codes which trigger this infobar showing:

  static base::flat_set<int> responses = {
      net::HTTP_NOT_FOUND,              // 404
      net::HTTP_REQUEST_TIMEOUT,        // 408
      net::HTTP_GONE,                   // 410
      451,                              // Unavailable For Legal Reasons
      net::HTTP_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR,  // 500
      net::HTTP_BAD_GATEWAY,            // 502,
      net::HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE,    // 503,
      net::HTTP_GATEWAY_TIMEOUT,        // 504,
      509,                              // Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
      520,                              // Web Server Returned an Unknown Error
      521,                              // Web Server Is Down
      523,                              // Origin Is Unreachable
      524,                              // A Timeout Occurred
      525,                              // SSL Handshake Failed
      526                               // Invalid SSL Certificate
  };

cc: @rebron for triage

[rebron]

closing as wontfix. Per codes above, working as expected.

[benwiggins]

It is extraordinarily shitty that Brave explicitly says "404" in the infobar when triggered by some 14 response codes that are not 404. What is the point of error codes if you're going to rewrite them?

Surely if this is intended behaviour the feature could remain without the onscreen "404", and maybe "missing" should be reworded as "unavailable"?

[jonathansampson]

@benwiggins Good feedback. As an engineer, I agree with you that 5xx errors aren't 4xx errors, and 404 is different from other 4xx errors. That said, the average user understands "404" as "The page isn't working any longer." This tool isn't meant to be developer-oriented, but instead user-oriented. All that said, it may be necessary to consider losing the "404" entirely, and simply go with "Sorry, that page is missing."

[jonathansampson]

Conversation taking place here: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/8959

[bsclifton]

@benwiggins quick heads up that you can turn this off actually, if it's something you don't find useful. Preference is under brave://settings/braveHelpTips

Whatever the case is, thanks for the feedback 😄