File Url Cross Domain Issue in Chrome- Unexpected

Question

The issue is about Chrome throwing Cross Domain Error on using file url

I am embedding a svg document into a HTML using the object tag with the data attribute in the form of relative path, upon onload event I want to get the SVGDocument using getSVGDocument().

I am accessing the html file using file url, when getSVGDocument is called, Chrome gives a Cross Domain Error. Chrome actually does embed the SVG but getSVGDocument does not return the DOM for the SVG

The Chrome Error is "Unsafe JavaScript attempt to access frame with URL file:///C:/MyFiles/website/Dir1/a.svg from frame with URL file:///C:/MyFiles/website/Dir1/index.html Domains, protocols and ports must match."

As you may see the base path is same for both the html and the embedded document svg, so why does Chrome throw this error ?

Answer 1

You are hitting the cross domain/file security limitations of Chrome.

You can, disable this by following the instructions in Disable same origin policy in Chrome and details in How can access and the origin policy in chrome as I'm not using a server on how to start Chrome with these turned off.

A word of warning, though: they are called "security limitations" for a reason so do not go applying this when browsing 3rd party sites. This is extremely dangerous to turn off whilst browsing the web normally. For example, with this turned off I can now make requests on your behalf to sites like gmail.com, facebook.com and yourbank.com, and your cookies will be set allowing me to masquerade as yourself.

If you still really need this, you need to run chrome with the --disable-web-security flag:

chrome --disable-web-security # unix/linux only

If you need cross OS instructions on how to apply the flag, see http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/run-chromium-with-flags.