Firefox Tab Drag Yields Javascript Alert Failure

Before we begin, the following may be a bug, and I will be submitting a bug report as such. I am wondering if anybody else has experienced this issue, and if so, has any ideas for how I can repair the problem.

I have firefox open in a single window, with two (or more, but two for clarity) tabs. The second tab is on a website with some javascript that calls .alert(). If I drag the second tab out of the window and let it go, it opens a new window as expected to the same site. However, at this point, all javascript popups are broken.

"javascript popups" are defined as .alert()'s, as well as links that use javascript to call up the print dialog box. .confirm()'s and other such popups will be tested tomorrow morning.

"broken" is defined as follows: javascript will still execute. However, whenever a popup is supposed to appear (such as .alert() ), the following error will be thrown:

NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE: Component returned failure code: 0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE) [nsIDOMWindow.alert]

The exception causes the script to crash.

After research, I have found that this error is considered a bug from several years ago by many users: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=681505 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=633154

Technically, I could put the .alert() statements inside a try/catch, but in the context of the application, this is unacceptable. The alert provides a warning that credit card information is about to be processed.

Apologies for not posting actual application code; I do not have clearance to do so. Similar behavior can be demonstrated through w3school's javascript alert page.

Further information:

I'm on Firefox v21. The issue is present in both Windows 7 and OSX 10.7.5. Additionally, I am aware that the above error is caused by .alert() calls and the like after the "do not show additional popups" option is clicked. I have clicked that box many times, and after 3 seconds, the alert message will trigger again successfully (a different issue). I bring this up because it may be the case that when the new window opens after the tab drag, the "do not show" option is actually being honored.

Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks

Have you already asked or considered asking this question on http://suport.mozilla.org, or have you considered doing so? There would probably be more people on that site that would be able to help you out. If I knew how to help you I would, but I can't, and if no one else can, you should try there.