visiting gopher url spawns a terminal window and fails to show site

[BRS7]

With both overbitenx/overbitewx gopher urls load as blank pages and for some reason will also spawn a new blank terminal window.
I am using Firefox 70.0.1 on Mac Os Mojabe 10.14.6. Extensions where downloaded from addons.mozilla.org

[classilla]

I'm using it myself on Mojave and I can't reproduce that at all. If it's happening in both extensions, I don't have a suggestion for you.

[pbgc]

I have this exact problem
I installed Onyx component (double checked it's installed)
I never got this:
"The first time this is done, Firefox will ask if you want to use OverbiteNX to browse the site, along with a checkbox to remember this setting (strongly suggested). Select it and allow it to continue, and the Gopher site will load and be contacted."

I cannot click on Gopher links ... and if try to open manually a gopher url .. I get a blank page and a blank terminal window opens (in my case iterm2 that opens ... not Terminal.app)

I'm on a MBP with macOS 10.14.6 and Firefox 72.0.1

[classilla]

It sounds like something on your system already has the protocol hooked. If you use a tool like RCDefaultApp (this works fine on Mojave), gopher should not be listed. If it is, remove it and see if the problem persists.

http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCDefaultApp/

[pbgc]

@classilla thank you! Using RCDefaultApp I could see that gopher urls were being processed by default by iterm. I don't know how could that happened ... but associating them with FF made it work!

[classilla]

Strictly speaking you shouldn't have to associate them with anything. What happens if you just delete the association entirely?

[tedwardd]

@classilla I hit this same issue on MacOS 10.15.3 and Firefox 74. I installed RCDefaultApp and found that gopher was associated with iTerm2 as well. To my knowledge I've never set a default application for gopher URLs. I confirmed that I didn't have this set in my mailcap file either. Maybe this is some default set when you install iTerm2 or some MacOS default to open unknown things?

Do you know how you delete associations with RCDefaultApp? From what I can see, you can disable associations but not delete them. Using disable seems to reset it back to iTerm2 for me.

[classilla]

Just out of curiosity, assuming you can do it, can you simply remove iTerm2 entirely? Does that fix anything? (Add it back if you need, I'm just curious.)

My suspicion is iTerm2 somehow is hooking the protocol. I'd have to look at its plist though.

[tedwardd]

I can't remove it from my machine but I'll setup a MacOS VM this weekend and test it there. My tests will be as follows. If you want me to test anything else, please let me know. I'll follow up with the info no later than Monday of next week:

Clean install of MacOS 10.15:

• Snapshot VM in clean state
• Install RCDefaultApp, provide screenshot of gopher default
• Install OverbiteNX, see how it behaves
• Install iTerm2 and check RCDefaultAPP, provide screenshot of gopher default
• see how OverbiteNX behaves

Reset to clean snapshot

• install iTerm2
• Install RCDefaultApp, provide screenshot of gopher default
• Install and see how OverbiteNX Behaves

If the tests show that iTerm2 installation is the culprit and I have time, I'll take a look at the plist for iTerm2 and see what it's doing.

[classilla]

That sounds like a good plan. I might see if I can get a Catalina VM up myself (just a very busy weekend right now).

[tedwardd]

Welp, I got stuck trying to get the VM working in Virtualbox and couldn't test anything. I'll try to find time this week to keep at it.