[HTTPS-Everywhere] Errors in Firefox Error Console

[Kevin Jacobs]

HTTPS Finder dev here, sorry for my slow response.

This was an very old bug in the second "alpha" release, it was fixed back in 
March 2011 but any cleanup of duplicate rules had to be done manually. As 
Colonel Graff mentioned, delete the duplicate rulesets and HTTPS Finder 
should not create any more (it will prompt you to overwrite in the case that 
this would be needed).

I don't check this mailing list as often anymore as I don't have a lot of 
development time, so John please email me personally for any other 
troubleshooting or questions regarding this (or if you think it's still 
happening in current versions).

Thanks,
Kevin

-----Original Message----- 
From: Colonel Graff
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 8:16 PM
To: John A. Wallace
Cc: Kevin Jacobs ; https-everywhere
Subject: Re: [HTTPS-Everywhere] Errors in Firefox Error Console

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 10:29 PM, John A. Wallace <jw72253 at verizon.net> 
wrote:
> I am inclined to believe that my supposition in the previous post was 
> correct:
> these error messages are caused by duplicate rules being created by HTTPS 
> Finder
> and put into the folder "HTTPSEverywhereUserRules". Furthermore, because 
> there
> are numerous instances in which many of these duplicate rules occur 
> several
> times, it would not be caused merely when a rule had been created by HTTPS
> Finder first and then later included as a new rule in one of the updates 
> of
> HTTPS Everywhere. Rather, it would appear as though HTTPS Finder is 
> creating
> duplicate rules based on its own processes. In the worse case scenario I 
> can see
> so far, how else could this be explained:
>
> That is, I have 18 contiguous instances of this error message in the FF 
> Console
> and I have 18 duplicates (plus one nonduplicate) files like this
>  in the folder "HTTPSEverywhereUserRules":
>
> Askville.amazon.xml
> Askville.amazon-1.xml
> ... et al.
> ...
> Askville.amazon-18.xml
>

This looks like a serious issue with HTTPS Finder, not HTTPS
Everywhere. If I were you, I would delete Askville.amazon-(1-18).xml.
The reason it is giving you that error is because all of those
rulesets where given the same *rule* name. Not the same *file* name.
The file can be named anything, the rule name is what is important.

> One thing that occurs to me to ask, Is there any sort of procedure in 
> place to
> adjust for the fact that HTTPS Everywhere gets new rules built in with its
> update periodically, so that any rules created independently by HTTPS 
> Finder
> would then get removed so that the errors from duplicates does not persist 
> and
> grow? Secondly, it would be swell if there were an expedient means for me, 
> or
> other users, to get a periodically updated listing of all the domains for 
> which
> rules were made and built into the HTTPS Everywhere extension.

HTTPS Everywhere will not edit any of the files in your UserRules
directory. As new rules get added to the extension, you may see other
errors, perhaps about target hosts and even rule names. If you want to
find out roughly what websites are already covered, all you need to do
is go to Tools > HTTPS Everywhere > Enable/Disable Rules or to the
HTTPS Everywhere icon > Enable / Disable rules. It is lengthy (there
are over 3000 rulesets currently in the development branch), but it
works. As per giving a list of which rulesets were added, that is
probably doable, but would simply add to the length of the change logs
and unnecessarily so as well. And because of how the patterns work to
match websites, it would be difficult to say exactly which websites
(or parts of websites) are covered specifically.

> I have no idea why duplicate rules would be created, but it does seem to
> indicate a problem that needs to be addressed. I am also not sure why 
> HTTPS
> Everywhere sees these as duplicates when they clearly have different 
> names, but
> it is great that it does because, regardless of the names, when I looked 
> at
> these rules, I can see that they surely are identical. It would seem to me 
> that
> there ought to be a means to check for duplicate rules too, and to remove 
> any
> that get found.

As I explained before, this is HTTPS Finder's problem. Not ours. The
reason for the error you see in the console is quite simply the fact
that these duplicates do *not* get added while looking at those files.
It goes by rule name, which needs to be unique to be displayed in the
Enable/Disable Rules dialog, and if the name already exists, it fires
an error message and moves on.

> What would either of you recommend in the way of rectifying this issue? 
> Thank
> you.

Contact HTTPS Finder's author. I know he's on this mailing list or the
ruleset mailing list (or possibly both). Let him know what's
happening.

Also, if you'd like, submit some of the rules (not the duplicates of
course) to the ruleset mailing list (not this one) if you feel so
inclined. If you stop getting the errors about the rulesets after
deleting the duplicate files, you may be able to contribute new
rulesets which we might not find/get otherwise.

> "John" <jw72253-H+0wwilmMs3R7s880joybQ at public.gmane.org> wrote in message
> news:jp435f$d3o$1 at dough.gmane.org...
>> Do I understand you correctly in that rules built into this extension by 
>> the
>> developers get put in the one file named "default.rulesets", which 
>> appears
>> in the following folder:
>>
>>  %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\abcd1234.default\extensions...
>> \https-everywhere at eff.org\chrome\content\rules
>>
>> Whereas rules that are created by individual users for use with this
>> extension get put into the following folder:
>>
>> %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\abcd1234.default\HTTPSEverywhereUserRules
>>
>> If that is true, then it is possible that the duplicates were created by
>> another exension called HTTPS Finder. It appears as if the rules in this
>> folder are put into separate files with their names like, for example,
>> "winpcap.xml"? This particular example is in fact one of those that I do 
>> get
>> an error message about. As a matter of fact HTTPS Everywhere reports the
>> error of having found the Winpcap rule three times, and I can see the
>> presence of these in that HTTPSEverywhereUserRules folder:
>>
>> Winpcap.xml, Winpcap-1.xml, Winpcap-2.xml, Winpcap-3.xml
>>
>> This is just one of the many instances of duplicates that your extension
>> reports having found. This may be what I am seeing and it does appear
>> consistent with these occurrences.
>>
>> Let me ask you a related question. I am not sure how you come about 
>> deciding
>> which rules to include, but if you have already included a rule for a
>> particular site and if another rule is created for this site and put into
>> HTTPSEverywhereUserRules folder, would you expect to see the duplicate 
>> error
>> message?
>>
>> If my inference here is correct, is there any reason I cannot simply 
>> delete
>> the duplicate files that were put in HTTPSEverywhereUserRules, like 
>> these:
>>
>> Winpcap-1.xml, Winpcap-2.xml, Winpcap-3.xml
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>>
>> "Colonel Graff" 
>> <graffatcolmingov-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
>> wrote in message
>>
> news:CAN-Kwu084j+oobKzFXqxQqTWr4pCR7RCP2u0vxjPfr=u_JNKRw-JsoAwUIsXouq+1Nelnf3ueG
> /Ez6ZCGd0 at public.gmane.org
>> It depends on the duplicate rule names in specific. Also, check your
>> %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\(profile
>> name)\HTTPSEverywhereUserRules directory for any possible rules you
>> may have written and placed there for collisions.
>>
>> If you are concerned about privacy for whatever reason, feel free to
>> send me the error console output and I'll look into it. As for making
>> the browser run at peak efficiency, those messages in the error
>> console shouldn't affect that. Having too many add-ons installed will.
>> Thanks for the notice though.
>>
>> On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 5:21 PM, John
>> <jw72253-H+0wwilmMs3R7s880joybQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>> Hello. If there is a different place where this information should be
>>> given,
>>> please advise. I have HTTPS-Everywhere (version 2.0.5) installed in
>>> Firefox
>>> 12.0 on a Windows OS. When I start Firefox and immediately open the 
>>> Error
>>> Console, I can see numerous errors related to HTTPS Everywhere like so:
>>> "Error: found duplicate rule name XYZExample in file...". I really have 
>>> no
>>> idea why there would be duplicates.
>>>
>>> It seems to me that these should be corrected, and I want to bring them 
>>> to
>>> the developer's attention. Is this the right place to post the errors? I
>>> would very much like for these errors to go away so that my browser runs
>>> at
>>> peak efficiency. Thank you. :)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> HTTPS-everywhere mailing list
>>> HTTPS-everywhere-raj6Cz4vR2s/11+TDStg7g at public.gmane.org
>>> https://mail1.eff.org/mailman/listinfo/https-everywhere
>
>

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