Pages load twice on Firefox?

Question

I thought I had answered this question before thanks to StackOverFlow, but I hastily took an answer and it turns out not to be the real cause to my problem.

I have checked my Apache Access Log:

This is me browsing my web app on Google Chrome Browser.

127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:17:35 +0000] "GET /webs/end/new.php HTTP/1.1" 200 2146
127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:17:36 +0000] "GET /webs/end/settings.php HTTP/1.1" 200 4548
127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:17:38 +0000] "GET /webs/end/index.php HTTP/1.1" 200 2042

This is me browsing my web app on IE7.

127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:21:49 +0000] "GET /webs/end/settings.php HTTP/1.1" 200 4548
127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:21:50 +0000] "GET /webs/end/index.php HTTP/1.1" 200 2042

This is me browsing my web app on Firefox.

127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:18:08 +0000] "GET /webs/end/settings.php HTTP/1.1" 200 4548
127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:18:09 +0000] "GET /webs/end/settings.php HTTP/1.1" 200 4548
127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:18:10 +0000] "GET /webs/end/index.php HTTP/1.1" 200 2042
127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:18:10 +0000] "GET /webs/end/index.php HTTP/1.1" 200 2042
127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:18:11 +0000] "GET /webs/end/new.php HTTP/1.1" 200 2146
127.0.0.1 - - [06/Jan/2010:22:18:12 +0000] "GET /webs/end/new.php HTTP/1.1" 200 2146

This is just me clicking around. But notice that for every page request firefox seems to be loading the page twice and its effecting my PHP scripts as they are executing twice and making two insertions into my DB!

Why is the case? I am using Firefox 3.5.6. I am guessing this is a Firefox issue rather than a PHP/Apache one?

Underwent

I really hope that the insertions you are talking about are strictly logging. If issuing GET requests causes some other data change then you have serious design issues here. – Sapers

If issuing GET requests causes some other data change that's an entirely bogus statement. There is no difference whether you accept a series of input parameters from a form fieldset in post, or a query string collection on a get. – Lina

I wouldn't say there is no difference. For one the post request would require a re-post (which most browsers would prompt the user about), while a GET request can be re-requested easily (unintentionally) and copying the URL and pasting it would re-request it. Also, someone could easily put a link in an img on their site with the src pointing to your site, and anyone visiting their site would post to your site. If your security is cookie based, their cookie would still be sent. So there is quite a lot of reasons to not use GET for posting data to be persisted or requests that will alter data. – Chintz

Answer 1

What plugins have you got installed in Firefox, they may be making requests silently, especially FireBug. Try turning firebug off & see if it still happens.

As mentioned in the comment below, the latest version of FireBug shouldn't be doing this, so if it isn't, try disabling all your plugins (or running FireFox in safe mode) and see if it still happens

Rothschild

With a previous version of Firebug I had this problem. – Hangnail

Yeah, the latest version doesn't do this, so this may not be the problem. – Rothschild

I have firebug and its version: 1.4.5, which is the latest version. – Underwent

Alright, it seems to be the YSlow plugin! Damn it! Thanks guys. :) – Underwent

@Underwent can you confirm this is due to YSlow? I've noticed this behavior before with Firefox and I currently have Firebug and YSlow also. – Lina

Answer 2

Check out the Accept headers on the 2nd request. Does it look to be a request for an image? If so, you may have an empty "src" attribute on an "img" tag or an empty "url" definition in a CSS property which is causing the 2nd request.

More info here: http://icanhascode.com/2008/06/the-mystery-of-the-multiple-requests/

In general, this issue is a pain to track down.

Royo

In my case background-image: url(""); was the issue. Fixed. Thanks. – Norvell

Answer 3

I had the same problem another day. The solution was put

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">

higher on the code. There was some css codes loading before it.

Disavowal

I had to move it before a <!--[if lt IE 7]> statement. – Straighten

Still its not working. do u have any alternate solution? – Aetolia

Answer 4

This was a charset declaration issue for me too - take it out of all meta tags and declare it elsewhere!

Receptive

This was my issue as well. changing: <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> to <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html" /> fixed it. – Nerte

This appears to be another long-standing Firefox bug that the development team are unable or unwilling to fix: Bug 61363 – Suspicion

Answer 5

As mentioned by Michael Morton, IMG tags with missing SRC can be a problem. Could also be empty HREF attributes on A tags. I've used jQuery to quickly identify them:

http://www.planbox.com/blog/development/coding/browser-send-same-request-twice-or-multiple-times.html

In short, run this in Firebug:

$('img[src=""],a[href=""]')

Sidestep

<script src=""> tags can cause this too – Babar

Answer 6

This line is some Dreamweaver driven HTML and caused the browser to load twice (with doc type removed and firebug disabled):

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

Stark

this line:<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> – Stark

Answer 7

None of these worked for me. Many hours of worry...here is what was my problem:

I had a HTML link with a button inside it. I found this was the problem because when I tested it on IE, the button didn't work (Buttons still worked in Firefox).

WRONG:

<a href=''><button class='btn'>Test</button></a>

RIGHT:

<a class='btn' href=''>Test</a>

WORKS now and no more double tap.

Tailored

Answer 8

In my case I had duplicate tags like this:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">

<!-- more code -->

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">

After removing it from my Blogger template, Firefox stopped re-loading the page.

Delphina

Answer 9

Am using mozilla firefox 46.0.1 and I got the same problem. But I noticed it occurred only when my php script had warning errors. Setting error_reporting(0); in my php script stopped the double execution of the script. After trying all the above suggestions, of course.

Yorker