Develop Reference

Posting messages to external Javascript via mshtml

I am attempting to communicate with an externally linked javascript file from the DOM using mshtml.
I figured using postMessage found in IHTMLWindow6 would be the easiest way but I am not receiving the messages in my external javascript file.
Here is my C++ code that posts the message:
if (!htmlDocu->get_parentWindow(&htmlWin2) && htmlWin2)
{
IHTMLWindow6 * htmlWin6;
if (!htmlWin2->QueryInterface(IID_IHTMLWindow6, (void **)&htmlWin6) && htmlWin6)
{
VARIANT varBstr;
VariantInit(&varBstr);
varBstr.vt = VT_BSTR;
varBstr.bstrVal = SysAllocString(L"*");
BSTR str1 = SysAllocString(L"the message");
htmlWin6->postMessage(str1, varBstr);
VariantClear(&varBstr);
SysFreeString(str1);
}
}
Here is my javascript code that should be receiving the message but is not:
window.addEventListener('message', function(event) {
alert('got message'); /* Never happens. Why? */
alert(event.origin); /* Never happens. Why? */
alert(event.data); /* Never happens. Why? */
}, false );
I believe the error is in the C++ as I am able to send a message event inside of the javascript with no issues:
window.addEventListener('load', function(event) {
alert('sending message');
window.postMessage("lalala", "*");
}, false);
Could anyone provide where I can find good C++ example of using postMessage() via IHTMLWindow6?

Chrome extension: How to remove orphaned script after chrom extension update

I have a chrome extension with a popup page which passes a boolean variable to my content page via simple one-time requests. The content page would then do some action based on the status of the boolean variable passed from the popup page. This was working perfectly until I accidentally removed the extension (still in developer mode, the extension is unpacked) and had to re-load it.
This caused an extension context invalidated error to appear in the popup inspection console and the webpage console seems to validate that the popup page and content script are not communicating. The webpage with the chrome extension active shows this error: Unchecked runtime.lastError: The message port closed before a response was received.
Based on a few answers I've already seen, it seems that reloading my chrome extension has "orphaned" my original working content script from the rest of my extension, which causes the aforementioned "Unchecked runtime.lastError: The message port closed before a response was received." error on the webpage console.
I believe that I cannot just reinject my content script again as my content script has DOM event listeners. Is there a possible way to remove the currently running orphan script? Or is there any suggested workaround to this problem?
Here is my popup.js:
chrome.tabs.query({'active': true, 'currentWindow': true}, function (tabs) {
chrome.tabs.sendMessage(tabs[0].id, {cTabSettings: (some boolean variable)});
});
Here is my content.js:
// Listening for message from popup.js
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
if (request.cTabSettings === true) {
enabled = true;
} else if (request.cTabSettings === false) {
enabled = false;
}
});
// DOM listener and action
document.addEventListener('mousemove', function (e) {
// Some action
chrome.runtime.sendMessage({sender: "content", selText : "blah"}, function () {
console.log("success");
});
}, false);
I am using chrome developer mode version 76. Just to rephrase, this chrome extension was working (content script communicates with popup) before I accidentally reloaded it.

Since the orphaned content script can still receive DOM messages, send one from your new working content script to the ghosted content script via window, for example. Upon receiving the message you'll unregister all listeners (and nullify any global variables) which will also make your old script eligible for automatic garbage collection.
content.js:
var orphanMessageId = chrome.runtime.id + 'orphanCheck';
window.dispatchEvent(new Event(orphanMessageId));
window.addEventListener(orphanMessageId, unregisterOrphan);
// register all listeners with named functions to preserve their object reference
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(onMessage);
document.addEventListener('mousemove', onMouseMove);
// the popup script checks it to see if a usable instance of content script is running
window.running = true;
function unregisterOrphan() {
if (chrome.runtime.id) {
// someone tried to kick us out but we're not orphaned!
return;
}
window.removeEventListener(orphanMessageId, unregisterOrphan);
document.removeEventListener('mousemove', onMouseMove);
try {
// 'try' is needed to avoid an exception being thrown in some cases
chrome.runtime.onMessage.removeListener(onMessage);
} catch (e) {}
return true;
});
function onMessage(msg, sender, sendResponse) {
//...........
}
function onMouseMove(event) {
// DOM events still fire in the orphaned content script after the extension
// was disabled/removed and before it's re-enabled or re-installed
if (unregisterOrphan()) { return }
//...........
}
popup.js should ensure a content script is injected before sending a message:
async function sendMessage(data) {
const [tab] = await chrome.tabs.query({active: true, currentWindow: true});
if (await ensureContentScript(tab.id)) {
return await chrome.tabs.sendMessage(tab.id, data);
}
}
async function ensureContentScript(tabId) {
try {
const [{result}] = await chrome.scripting.executeScript({
target: {tabId},
func: () => window.running === true,
});
if (!result) {
await chrome.scripting.executeScript({
target: {tabId},
files: ['content.js'],
});
}
return true;
} catch (e) {}
}

Please check this answer
It's not about removal of script but to avoiding error in case.

Intercept new downloads in Firefox Addon SDK

I have written a simple download manager for Windows and I would like to create an addon for Firefox that when enabled intercepts new downloads in Firefox and sends them to the download manager.
I have already done this for Google Chrome using:
chrome.downloads.onCreated.addListener(function(details) {
// stop the download
chrome.downloads.cancel(details.id, null);
}
The question is how can I achieve something similar using the Firefox add-on SDK.
I see there is a way of intercepting page loads to view the content / headers which might be helpful but then I won't know if the request will turn into a download or not.
Firefox add-on SDK: Get http response headers
I could perhaps look for a content type that is not text/html or check for a content disposition header but that could cause problems if I don't correctly handle all cases.
Is there no way of accessing the download manager using the JS SDK or some way of knowing when a download has been started / being started and stop it?

The http-on-examine-response observer that the linked question discusses is the wrong way to go. It concerns all requests not just downloads.
Instead use the Downloads.jsm to observe new downloads, then cancel them, and so on.
To load Downloads.jsm in the SDK use:
const {Cu} = require("chrome");
Cu.import("resource://gre/modules/Downloads.jsm");
Cu.import("resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm");
Then you can add your listener.
let view = {
onDownloadAdded: function(download) {
console.log("Added", download);
},
onDownloadChanged: function(download) {
console.log("Changed", download);
},
onDownloadRemoved: function(download) {
console.log("Removed", download);
}
};
Task.spawn(function() {
try {
let list = yield Downloads.getList(Downloads.ALL);
yield list.addView(view);
} catch (ex) {
console.error(ex);
}
});
The linked MDN docs have more information and samples.
Since your add-on is a restartless SDK add-on, you'll need to remove the listener again using .removeView on unload, or else there will be a memory leak.

Here's the JSM way.
Components.utils.import("resource://gre/modules/Downloads.jsm");
Components.utils.import("resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm");
Components.utils.import("resource://gre/modules/FileUtils.jsm");
var view = {
onDownloadChanged: function (download) {
console.log(download, 'Changed');
if (download.succeeded) {
var file = new FileUtils.File(this.target.path);
console.log('file', file);
}
}
};
var list;
Task.spawn(function () {
list = yield Downloads.getList(Downloads.ALL);
list.addView(view);
}).then(null, Components.utils.reportError);
Remember to removeView to stop listening. Can do this anywhere, like in shutdown function or whatever, doesn't have to be within that Task.spawn so list must be global var.
list.removeView(view); //to stop listening
Here's the old way, which seems to still work. Although I thought they said they're going to take out the old downloadManager:
var observerService = Components.classes["#mozilla.org/download-manager;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIDownloadManager);
observerService.addListener({
onDownloadStateChange: function (state, dl) {
console.log('dl=', dl);
console.log('state=', state);
console.log('targetFile', dl.targetFile);
if (state == 7 && dl.targetFile.leafName.substr(-4) == ".txt") {
//guys just downloaded (succesfully) a .txt file
}
}
});
Heres a mozillazine with some more on this: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2792021

Injected HTML accessing the Chrome API and global variables

I'm working on a Chrome Extension, and I'm new to the process. The extension I'm working on injects an HTML sidebar into the page, injects java-script functions to the header, then let's the user press the buttons on the sidebar to create/save my extension's data.
However, when I want to save the information, I use localStorage, however, the localStorage always saves with respect to the current website. How can I use localStorage to save with respect to our extension?
Furthermore, I would like to use some global javascript variables in the chrome-extension. Where do these belong? I know I can't currently access them from the injected Javascript.
I've looked into message passing, and I've had some trouble with it. I'm not sure how it works in the scope of injected javascript into a page's header. I've tried working with this example, but my extension doesn't seem to catch the message.
// This function is called in the injected header javascript.
function sendToExtension() {
setTimeout(function() {
console.log('page javascript sending message');
window.postMessage({ type: 'page_js_type',
text: "Hello from the page's javascript!"},
'*' /* targetOrigin: any */);
}, 10);
}
// This is installed in a background script.
window.addEventListener('message', function(event) {
console.log('content_script.js got message:', event);
});

You have to use Chrome's sendMessage function and onMessage listener. See below:
function sendToExtension() {
console.log('Sending message');
chrome.runtime.sendMessage({ext: "myExtension"}, function(response) {
console.log(response.ack);
});
}
// Listener - Put this in the background script to listen to all the events.
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
if (request.ext) {
console.log('Message received from ' + request.ext);
sendResponse({ack:'received'}); // This send a response message to the requestor
}
});

Detect failure to load contents of an iframe

I can detect when the content of an iframe has loaded using the load event. Unfortunately, for my purposes, there are two problems with this:
If there is an error loading the page (404/500, etc), the load event is never fired.
If some images or other dependencies failed to load, the load event is fired as usual.
Is there some way I can reliably determine if either of the above errors occurred?
I'm writing a semi-web semi-desktop application based on Mozilla/XULRunner, so solutions that only work in Mozilla are welcome.

If you have control over the iframe page (and the pages are on the same domain name), a strategy could be as follows:
In the parent document, initialize a variable var iFrameLoaded = false;
When the iframe document is loaded, set this variable in the parent to true calling from the iframe document a parent's function (setIFrameLoaded(); for example).
check the iFrameLoaded flag using the timer object (set the timer to your preferred timeout limit) - if the flag is still false you can tell that the iframe was not regularly loaded.
I hope this helps.

This is a very late answer, but I will leave it to someone who needs it.
Task: load iframe cross-origin content, emit onLoaded on success and onError on load error.
This is the most cross browsers origin independent solution I could develop. But first of all I will briefly tell about other approaches I had and why they are bad.
1. iframe That was a little shock for me, that iframe only has onload event and it is called on load and on error, no way to know it is error or not.
2. performance.getEntriesByType('resource'). This method returns loaded resources. Sounds like what we need. But what a shame, firefox always adds Resource in resources array no matter it is loaded or failed. No way to know by Resource instance was it success. As usual. By the way, this method does not work in ios<11.
3. script I tried to load html using <script> tag. Emits onload and onerror correctly, sadly, only in Chrome.
And when I was ready to give up, my elder collegue told me about html4 tag <object>. It is like <iframe> tag except it has fallbacks when content is not loaded. That sounds like what we are need! Sadly it is not as easy as it sounds.
CODE SECTION
var obj = document.createElement('object');
// we need to specify a callback (i will mention why later)
obj.innerHTML = '<div style="height:5px"><div/>'; // fallback
obj.style.display = 'block'; // so height=5px will work
obj.style.visibility = 'hidden'; // to hide before loaded
obj.data = src;
After this we can set some attributes to <object> like we'd wanted to do with iframe. The only difference, we should use <params>, not attributes, but their names and values are identical.
for (var prop in params) {
if (params.hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
var param = document.createElement('param');
param.name = prop;
param.value = params[prop];
obj.appendChild(param);
}
}
Now, the hard part. Like many same-like elements, <object> doesn't have specs for callbacks, so each browser behaves differently.
Chrome. On error and on load emits load event.
Firefox. Emits load and error correctly.
Safari. Emits nothing....
Seems like no different from iframe, getEntriesByType, script....
But, we have native browser fallback! So, because we set fallback (innerHtml) directly, we can tell if <object> is loaded or not
function isReallyLoaded(obj) {
return obj.offsetHeight !== 5; // fallback height
}
/**
* Chrome calls always, Firefox on load
*/
obj.onload = function() {
isReallyLoaded(obj) ? onLoaded() : onError();
};
/**
* Firefox on error
*/
obj.onerror = function() {
onError();
};
But what to do with Safari? Good old setTimeout.
var interval = function() {
if (isLoaded) { // some flag
return;
}
if (hasResult(obj)) {
if (isReallyLoaded(obj)) {
onLoaded();
} else {
onError();
}
}
setTimeout(interval, 100);
};
function hasResult(obj) {
return obj.offsetHeight > 0;
}
Yeah.... not so fast. The thing is, <object> when fails has unmentioned in specs behaviour:
Trying to load (size=0)
Fails (size = any) really
Fallback (size = as in innnerHtml)
So, code needs a little enhancement
var interval = function() {
if (isLoaded) { // some flag
return;
}
if (hasResult(obj)) {
if (isReallyLoaded(obj)) {
interval.count++;
// needs less then 400ms to fallback
interval.count > 4 && onLoadedResult(obj, onLoaded);
} else {
onErrorResult(obj, onError);
}
}
setTimeout(interval, 100);
};
interval.count = 0;
setTimeout(interval, 100);
Well, and to start loading
document.body.appendChild(obj);
That is all. I tried to explain code in every detail, so it may look not so foolish.
P.S. WebDev sucks

I had this problem recently and had to resort to setting up a Javascript Polling action on the Parent Page (that contains the IFRAME tag). This JavaScript function checks the IFRAME's contents for explicit elements that should only exist in a GOOD response. This assumes of course that you don't have to deal with violating the "same origin policy."
Instead of checking for all possible errors which might be generated from the many different network resources.. I simply checked for the one constant positive Element(s) that I know should be in a good response.
After a pre-determined time and/or # of failed attempts to detect the expected Element(s), the JavaScript modifies the IFRAME's SRC attribute (to request from my Servlet) a User Friendly Error Page as opposed to displaying the typical HTTP ERROR message. The JavaScript could also just as easily modify the SRC attribute to make an entirely different request.
function checkForContents(){
var contents=document.getElementById('myiframe').contentWindow.document
if(contents){
alert('found contents of myiframe:' + contents);
if(contents.documentElement){
if(contents.documentElement.innerHTML){
alert("Found contents: " +contents.documentElement.innerHTML);
if(contents.documentElement.innerHTML.indexOf("FIND_ME") > -1){
openMediumWindow("woot.html", "mypopup");
}
}
}
}
}

I think that the pageshow event is fired for error pages. Or if you're doing this from chrome, then your check your progress listener's request to see if it's an HTTP channel in which case you can retrieve the status code.
As for page dependencies, I think you can only do this from chrome by adding a capturing onerror event listener, and even then it will only find errors in elements, not CSS backgrounds or other images.

Doesn't answer your question exactly, but my search for an answer brought me here, so I'm posting just in case anyone else had a similar query to me.
It doesn't quite use a load event, but it can detect whether a website is accessible and callable (if it is, then the iFrame, in theory, should load).
At first, I thought to do an AJAX call like everyone else, except that it didn't work for me initially, as I had used jQuery. It works perfectly if you do a XMLHttpRequest:
var url = http://url_to_test.com/
var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status != 200) {
console.log("iframe failed to load");
}
};
xhttp.open("GET", url, true);
xhttp.send();
Edit:
So this method works ok, except that it has a lot of false negatives (picks up a lot of stuff that would display in an iframe) due to cross-origin malarky. The way that I got around this was to do a CURL/Web request on a server, and then check the response headers for a) if the website exists, and b) if the headers had set x-frame-options.
This isn't a problem if you run your own webserver, as you can make your own api call for it.
My implementation in node.js:
app.get('/iframetest',function(req,res){ //Call using /iframetest?url=url - needs to be stripped of http:// or https://
var url = req.query.url;
var request = require('https').request({host: url}, function(response){ //This does an https request - require('http') if you want to do a http request
var headers = response.headers;
if (typeof headers["x-frame-options"] != 'undefined') {
res.send(false); //Headers don't allow iframe
} else {
res.send(true); //Headers don't disallow iframe
}
});
request.on('error',function(e){
res.send(false); //website unavailable
});
request.end();
});

Have a id for the top most (body) element in the page that is being loaded in your iframe.
on the Load handler of your iframe, check to see if getElementById() returns a non null value.
If it is, iframe has loaded successfully. else it has failed.
in that case, put frame.src="about:blank". Make sure to remove the loadhandler before doing that.

If the iframe is loaded on the same origin as the parent page, then you can do this:
iframeEl.addEventListener('load', function() {
// NOTE: contentDocument is null if a connection error occurs or if
// X-Frame-Options is not SAMESITE (which could happen with
// 4xx or 5xx error pages if the corresponding error handlers
// do not specify SAMESITE). If error handlers do not specify
// SAMESITE, then networkErrorOccurred will incorrectly be set
// to true.
const networkErrorOccurred = !iframeEl.contentDocument;
const serverErrorOccurred = (
!networkErrorOccurred &&
!iframeEl.contentDocument.querySelector('#well-known-element')
);
if (networkErrorOccurred || serverErrorOccurred) {
let errorMessage;
if (networkErrorOccurred) {
errorMessage = 'Error: Network error';
} else if (serverErrorOccurred) {
errorMessage = 'Error: Server error';
} else {
// Assert that the above code is correct.
throw new Error('networkErrorOccurred and serverErrorOccurred are both false');
}
alert(errorMessage);
}
});