Firefox Basic HTTP Auth not remembering credentials if username include backslash?

Question

Firefox (3.6.3) does not seem to remember basic http auth credentials when the username includes a backslash. I clicked on 'Remember' and 'Change' many times but the Authentication popup (with the part after the backslash filled into the username field) keeps showing up when I load the site.

Any ideas why this happens and how to work around it?

Answer 1

This sounds like a bug. The backslash is interfering with the handling of the credentials. You can use a packet sniffer to verify that Firefox is trying some credentials, but is being handed a 401 in return.

Answer 2

I basically see two options in addition to the previous answer.

The first would be that the backslash is actually escaping the next character, or making it a special character like a \n or a \t (newline and tab, respectively). The solution if this is the case would be to escape the backslash by adding an extra backslash.

The second option would be that the backslash is breaking in another way, id est, everything after the backslash would be omitted. I don't know how to work around this, though.

Either way, it would be a good idea to check the bug database to see if this is expected behavior or if this is already reported.