Firefox insists on getting /favicon.cio when accessing the helloworld app on local python app engine instance

1
votes

I tried the helloworld example app https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/gettingstartedpython27/helloworld on the 1.9.0 python SDK engine and got a "The requested URL / was not found on this server" error. The strange thing is it works when tested with 3 other browsers. The log of running dev_appserver.py helloworld/ shows

INFO 2014-03-01 15:43:33,999 module.py:612] default: "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 13
INFO 2014-03-01 15:43:49,510 module.py:612] default: "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 13
INFO 2014-03-01 15:43:50,169 module.py:612] default: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 154
INFO 2014-03-01 15:45:03,572 module.py:612] default: "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 13

The one with a 404 error corresponds to accessing the app with firefox while the others are all successes with lynx, chromium and w3m. Can somebody help to see if it can be reproduced? So it seems firefox is insisting on looking for /favicon.ico. Why? Really strange!

1
pythongoogle-app-enginefirefox
Do you have a favicon.ico file in your directory? – Andrei Volgin
maybe Firefox by default tries to fetch the icon even if it's not explicitly mentioned in the header.. I wouldn't consider that a huge issue.. just include the /favicon.ico it is a cool thing to have.. – Lipis

1 Answers

0
votes

The W3C published a guideline called How to Add a Favicon to your Site in October 2005. The /favicon.ico request implements the deprecated Method 2 described there, chiefly for backward compatibility with older servers and browsers. The recommended Method 1 amounts to the following (merge with your own content):

<html>
    <head>
        <link rel="icon" type="image/ico" href="my-cool-icon.ico" />
    </head>
    <body>
        <!-- yada yada -->
    </body>
</html>

I would hope but cannot promise that Firefox ought to consider the explicit link first, and if that icon is found, to then skip the request for /favicon.ico. I'd be interested in whether it works for you with various of your browsers.