Local IPFS interfering with content fetching

[lkngtn]

I'm creating this issue on behalf of AlvinAntrican on Aragon's discord instance. He reported issues loading content from ipfs in the court dashboard. We were able to resolve the issue reliably be disabling his local ipfs instance, but are not able to explain what is causing the issue and are concerned that it will cause issues for others as well.

AlvinAntrican does not have access to github due to it being blocked in his location, but can help test further over discord. Here is a screenshot of the conversation for context:

[xuhcc]

I use ipfs-companion with my own IPFS gateway. No issues with the Court so far, dispute and evidence data loaded relatively quickly.

[ghost]

I have the same issue, using ipfs-companion as well. This probably doesn't happen if you use a localhost IPFS node, only if you are accessing an IPFS node on your network. Appliances such as DappNode, I believe, are working that way and a user of such product should expect to face this issue. Same goes if your IPFS node is in the cloud and accessed through a VPN, for example.

I am not entirely sure but I believe this is due to Chrome-based browsers that, within a https session, will only allow any secured (https) content with the exception of localhost for unsecured (http) content. IPFS is loading on http, not https.

Another option that can interfere can be found under two different names (although I believe it is the exact same thing): "Use Custom Gateway" and "Redirect to Gateway". Ideally this should be on as the more you can cache (and share) on your node the better, but in some cases it can also "break" the website.

Ideally, all should be loaded on IPFS.