# Validate input for a manually entered bridge

**URL:** https://forum.torproject.org/t/validate-input-for-a-manually-entered-bridge/3871
**Category:** Tor Browser Alpha Feedback
**Tags:** tor-browser
**Created:** [July 6, 2022, 12:22pm UTC](https://forum.torproject.org/t/validate-input-for-a-manually-entered-bridge/3871 "2022-07-06T12:22:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![tobrop](https://forum.torproject.org/user_avatar/forum.torproject.org/tobrop/32/1514_2.png) [@tobrop](https://forum.torproject.org/u/tobrop)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2022, 12:22pm UTC](https://forum.torproject.org/t/validate-input-for-a-manually-entered-bridge/3871/1 "2022-07-06T12:22:07Z")

</div>

**Tor Browser**

Tor Browser Alpha 11.5a13, 64bit

**Installation**

Tor Browser installed by _torbrowser-install-win64-11.5a13\_en-US.exe_

**Device and platform**

PC, Windows 10 Home (21H2), 64bit, German

**Steps to reproduce**

1. Install browser and start it
2. hamburger menu → Connection → click button “Add a Bridge Manually…”, type in nonsense and leave with OK

![grafik](https://forum.torproject.org/uploads/default/original/2X/6/64fdf52a51619a61640a20bab39804932a76f323.png)

1. Close and restart browser
2. hamburger menu → Connection. There’s an enabled bridge now

![grafik](https://forum.torproject.org/uploads/default/original/2X/6/666686cf074c27ee89178fecdc627d0bedb7948d.png)

and in the logs there are two warnings

```auto
[WARN] Error parsing Bridge address '489fvnvk49fgh34kruvnvf'
[WARN] Controller gave us config lines that didn't validate: Bridge line did not parse. See logs for details.

```

The browser accepted the input, created a bridge and then tells me that there’s something wrong with it 😉

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![donuts](https://forum.torproject.org/user_avatar/forum.torproject.org/donuts/32/7100_2.png) [@donuts](https://forum.torproject.org/u/donuts)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2022, 3:12pm UTC](https://forum.torproject.org/t/validate-input-for-a-manually-entered-bridge/3871/2 "2022-07-06T15:12:07Z")

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Thanks @tobrop, this is an excellent suggestion and is certainly on our radar. Moving the options to configure a bridge behind modal windows was the first step, and implementing some form of validation will come next.

You can follow the wider issue about Tor Browser quietly accepting bad configuration options within connection settings here:

> **[Don't silently log and continue when changing tor's config fails (#40551) ·...](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/40551)**
>
> We only throw an error when the setconf fails. We should not do that, especially when configuring a bridge.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![PieroV](https://forum.torproject.org/user_avatar/forum.torproject.org/pierov/32/756_2.png) [@PieroV](https://forum.torproject.org/u/PieroV)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2022, 9:31am UTC](https://forum.torproject.org/t/validate-input-for-a-manually-entered-bridge/3871/3 "2022-07-07T09:31:08Z")

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Actually, we do not validate bridge lines by design to allow adding new PTs without modifying Tor Browser code.

But we could check that at least the user is inserting an IP address with a port.