Bugzilla

(In reply to Rob Wu [:robwu] from comment #5)
> I understood the bug report as a request to automatically enable/disable add-ons to find a defect, especially because of the comment "Essentially, this utility did a binary search to locate the combination of extensions that caused the issue the user is experiencing.".
> If that's not the case, could you clarify your request?

I wasn't sure if my prior comment clarified my request enough - like I said in my initial comment:

(In reply to Asif Youssuff from comment #0)

> In the Firefox version, the process might look like:
> 
> 1. Does the issue exist in safe mode?
> 2. If yes, do a binary search of preferences modified away from the default
> 3. If no, move on to extensions, doing a binary search of enabled extensions
> 
> When completed, tell the user what preference or extensions are causing  the issue, allowing them to easily report issues to either bugzilla or the extension developers.

The minimal version contemplates preferences only, while an expanded version would include extensions as part of the search. 

The goal here is to get people back up and running to a configuration that works well for them, and to make it easy to disseminate that learning back to the community, and Firefox and extension developers - to either fix those issues, or to eliminate footguns.

Right now, I'm sure that many issues are worked around by Refreshing Firefox - because it is so tedious to play the guessing game of trying to figure out which preference or group of preferences or extension is newly causing an issue. This makes it so that people remain in a sub-optimal configuration simply because of the effort involved in diagnosing what is wrong.

With some documentation around this feature on SUMO, we could accelerate problem discovery and resolution, and increase user satisfaction across the board (by identifying long hidden issues) quicker than waiting for a single enterprising power user to encounter the issue in their configuration and *do the work* to identify what causes it. 

I know *I* have often given up and performed a Firefox Refresh when experiencing issues - how many of those issues that I encountered are still being experienced by users today (because I was unable to *easily* discover the problem)?

(In reply to Rob Wu [:robwu] from comment #5)
> I understood the bug report as a request to automatically enable/disable add-ons to find a defect, especially because of the comment "Essentially, this utility did a binary search to locate the combination of extensions that caused the issue the user is experiencing.".
> If that's not the case, could you clarify your request?

I wasn't sure if my prior comment clarified my request enough - like I said in my initial comment:

(In reply to Asif Youssuff from comment #0)

> In the Firefox version, the process might look like:
> 
> 1. Does the issue exist in safe mode?
> 2. If yes, do a binary search of preferences modified away from the default
> 3. If no, move on to extensions, doing a binary search of enabled extensions
> 
> When completed, tell the user what preference or extensions are causing  the issue, allowing them to easily report issues to either bugzilla or the extension developers.

The minimal version contemplates preferences only, while an expanded version would include extensions as part of the search. 

The goal here is to get people back up and running to a configuration that works well for them, and to make it easy to disseminate that learning back to the community, and Firefox and extension developers - to either fix those issues, or to eliminate footguns.

Right now, I'm sure that many issues are worked around by Refreshing Firefox - because it is so tedious to play the guessing game of trying to figure out which preference or group of preferences or extension is newly causing an issue. This makes it so that people remain in a sub-optimal configuration simply because of the effort involved in diagnosing what is wrong (or they switch to a browser that works better for them(.

With some documentation around this feature on SUMO, we could accelerate problem discovery and resolution, and increase user satisfaction across the board (by identifying long hidden issues) quicker than waiting for a single enterprising power user to encounter the issue in their configuration and *do the work* to identify what causes it. 

I know *I* have often given up and performed a Firefox Refresh when experiencing issues - how many of those issues that I encountered are still being experienced by users today (because I was unable to *easily* discover the problem)?

(In reply to Rob Wu [:robwu] from comment #5)
> I understood the bug report as a request to automatically enable/disable add-ons to find a defect, especially because of the comment "Essentially, this utility did a binary search to locate the combination of extensions that caused the issue the user is experiencing.".
> If that's not the case, could you clarify your request?

I wasn't sure if my prior comment clarified my request enough - like I said in my initial comment:

(In reply to Asif Youssuff from comment #0)

> In the Firefox version, the process might look like:
> 
> 1. Does the issue exist in safe mode?
> 2. If yes, do a binary search of preferences modified away from the default
> 3. If no, move on to extensions, doing a binary search of enabled extensions
> 
> When completed, tell the user what preference or extensions are causing  the issue, allowing them to easily report issues to either bugzilla or the extension developers.

The minimal version contemplates preferences only, while an expanded version would include extensions as part of the search. 

The goal here is to get people back up and running to a configuration that works well for them, and to make it easy to disseminate that learning back to the community, and Firefox and extension developers - to either fix those issues, or to eliminate footguns.

Right now, I'm sure that many issues are worked around by Refreshing Firefox - because it is so tedious to play the guessing game of trying to figure out which preference or group of preferences or extension is newly causing an issue. This makes it so that people remain in a sub-optimal configuration simply because of the effort involved in diagnosing what is wrong (or they switch to a browser that works better for them).

With some documentation around this feature on SUMO, we could accelerate problem discovery and resolution, and increase user satisfaction across the board (by identifying long hidden issues) quicker than waiting for a single enterprising power user to encounter the issue in their configuration and *do the work* to identify what causes it. 

I know *I* have often given up and performed a Firefox Refresh when experiencing issues - how many of those issues that I encountered are still being experienced by users today (because I was unable to *easily* discover the problem)?