1471243 - The New Tab Page is briefly displayed before the about:welcome page when a new Beta profile is opened

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect, P1)

Description

[Ciprian Muresan [:cmuresan], Ecosystem QA]

[Affected versions]:
- Firefox Beta v62.0b3, Build ID 20180625141512

[Affected Platforms]:
- All Windows
- All Mac
- All Linux

[Steps to reproduce]:
1. Create a new Firefox profile.
2. Start the browser with the new profile and observe the behavior.

[Expected results]:
- The "about:welcome" page is displayed as soon as the browser starts.

[Actual results]:
- The "about:newtab" page is briefly displayed before the "about:welcome" one.

[Notes]:
- The issue is not reproducible on slower machines.
- This issue is not reproducible on Nightly because the about:welcome page is not set as the first run page.
- Attached a screen recording of the issue: https://goo.gl/J3amc9.

Comment 1

[GitHub Bugzilla PR Linker]

Attachment: Link to GitHub pull-request: https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/pull/4233

Comment 2

[Adam Hillier :ahillier]

Attachment: Bug 1471243 - Do not prerender ActivityStream for about:welcome

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256094/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256094/

Comment 3

[Adam Hillier :ahillier]

There are two components to this. The GitHub PR uses CSS to hide ActivityStream while the startup overlay is rendered, which fixes the problem as long as the page is not prerendered. The MC patch disables prerendering for about:welcome. The changes are independent of each other and don't have to land at the same time, or in a particular order.

Comment 4

[Kate Hudson :k88hudson]

Comment on attachment 8991105 [details]
Bug 1471243 - Do not prerender ActivityStream for about:welcome

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/256094/#review263138

::: browser/components/newtab/aboutNewTabService.js:195
(Diff revision 1)
> +   * Returns the about:welcome URL
> +   *
> +   * This is calculated in the same way the default URL is, except that we don't
> +   * allow prerendering.
> +   */
> +  get welcomeURL() {

This is a little brittle but I don't really see a way around it without significant refactoring. The tests are a good compromise

Comment 5

[[github robot]]

Commit pushed to master at https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream

https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/commit/bbce85b17bfa82e290bea92e2c13a1ccdc41f623
Fix Bug 1471243: stop AS showing before first run overlay (#4233)

Comment 6

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/1d78b255d77b
Do not prerender ActivityStream for about:welcome r=k88hudson

Comment 7

[Chris More [:cmore]]

(In reply to Pulsebot from comment #6)
> Pushed by [e-mail]:
> https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/1d78b255d77b
> Do not prerender ActivityStream for about:welcome r=k88hudson

k88hudson: will not pre-rendering AS impact how quickly AS loads after a user finishes up with about:welcome or clicks the skip button? Having AS completely loaded and ready to be displayed after about:welcome was one of the tangible benefits that we could see with about:welcome. Thanks

Comment 8

[Kate Hudson :k88hudson]

In this case, not pre-rendering should have no effect on how quickly the rest of new tab can load since the page is able to continue to load in the background while the overlay is visible; pre-rendering just incorrectly flashes the white page with search / placeholders before the overlay is able to load.

Comment 9

[Chris More [:cmore]]

(In reply to Kate Hudson :k88hudson from comment #8)
> In this case, not pre-rendering should have no effect on how quickly the
> rest of new tab can load since the page is able to continue to load in the
> background while the overlay is visible; pre-rendering just incorrectly
> flashes the white page with search / placeholders before the overlay is able
> to load.

Makes sense and just wanted to clarify. Thanks!

Comment 10

[GitHub Bugzilla PR Linker]

Attachment: Link to GitHub pull-request: https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/pull/4239

Comment 11

[[github robot]]

Commit pushed to master at https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream

https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/commit/ecc4456e4cdfcb0acc1fec34bd656978f4ca9658
fix(styles): Use longhand background to avoid replacing themed background-color (#4239)

Followup Bug 1471243 to fix browser_ext_themes_ntp_colors.js mochitest failure.

Comment 12

[Andreea Pavel [:apavel]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/1d78b255d77b

Comment 13

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/08ffac879fd0

Comment 14

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau]]

Is this something we want to fix in 62?

Comment 15

[Adam Hillier :ahillier]

Bryan is it a problem from a UX perspective if we have about:welcome in 62 without this fix?

Comment 16

[Ciprian Muresan [:cmuresan], Ecosystem QA]

I have verified that the issue is no longer reproducible on the latest Nightly build (63.0a1, 20180718220144) on Windows 10 x64, Mac 10.13.5 and Arch Linux x64.

Comment 17

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Adam, this bug appears to be stuck. Did you hear back from Bryan about uplifting to 62? Time's running short in the cycle.

Comment 18

[Chris More [:cmore]]

Yeah, time is running out and about:welcome as-is is on the train for a Fx62 release.

Comment 19

[Adam Hillier :ahillier]

Sorry about the delay, it's safe to say we won't be requesting uplift for this. Thanks.