function fail never called if user declines to share geolocation in firefox

Question

So I have this javascript code. In safari and chrome, if user declines to share location, it goes to fail function as it should; however, in Firefox, it does not.

Any helps appreciated.

function initGeolocation() {     if( navigator.geolocation )     {                     // Call getCurrentPosition with success and failure callbacks           navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition( success, fail );     }     else     {           alert("Sorry, your browser does not support geolocation services.");     } }   var map;  function success(position)  {       var longIDText = document.getElementById('longID');      var latIDText = document.getElementById('latID');      longIDText.value = position.coords.longitude;      latIDText.value = position.coords.latitude;      document.getElementById('coordSubmitID').click();   }    function fail(error)   {           alert("FAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIL")           var zip_code ;           while (true){               // Could not obtain location                zip_code = prompt("Please enter your current address or zip code","");                 if ( zip_code == "" ) {                   alert(zip_code +" is not a valid address. Please try again.");               }                else{                 break;               }           }           var zipIDText = document.getElementById('zipID');           zipIDText.value = zip_code;           document.getElementById('coordSubmitID').click();   } 

Answer 1

For Firefox it seems that PERMISSION_DENIED is raised only if "Never share" is selected; if the dialog is dismissed or "Not now" is selected, effectively nothing happens - even on mozillas geolocation demo if you dismiss the permissions UI nothing happens.

This means that getCurrentPosition can return either because the user closed the confirmation UI, or because it successfully started it asynchronous request - there doesn't appear to be a way to discriminate between the two.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=675533

Answer 2

This is a real pain, and definately not desirable functionality.

The workaround I am using to save the user waiting for ever is to set a timeout to check if the wait spinner is showing after 3 seconds, and if so, hide it and show a manual zip code input:

var latlng;  var waitTime = 3000; try {     if (navigator.geolocation) {         navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function (position) {             success(position);         }, showError);     } else {         showError("NOT-SUPPORTED");     }     var t = setTimeout(function () {         if ($("#getZip div.loading").css("display") != "none") {             $("#getZip div.loading").hide();             $("#errorZip").show();         }     }, waitTime); } catch (evt) {     alert(evt); }