440239 - OS Screen Lock does not activate with the focus on Firefox

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect)

Description

[Wyatt Draggoo]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008061004 Firefox/3.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008061004 Firefox/3.0

My system is set up with a password-protected screen lock that comes on after 10 minutes. With Firefox in the foreground, the screen lock did not come on after 9 hours away from the system. I tested the screen lock by giving the focus to the Finder and waiting, and the screen lock activated. I then brought a Terminal up, and the screen lock came on as well. I then put the focus on Firefox and waited for 20 minutes, and the screen lock did not activate.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Enable password-protected screen lock
2. Click on Firefox to give it the focus
3. Wait... No screen lock
Actual Results:  
The screen lock did not activate.

Expected Results:  
The screen lock should have activated after 10 minutes.

I have not changed themes, and there are no extensions installed.

Comment 1

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

What "screen lock" are you talking about? Is this a separate program you installed, or the built in Mac system preference "log out after X minutes of inactivity" checkbox on the Security|General panel?

Is this new with Firefox 3, or did you also see this problem in Firefox 2?

Probably best to un-hide this bug: knowing about it is more likely to let people protect themselves than something external bad guys can exploit. Also more people will be able to see, confirm, and potentially fix this.

Need someone to confirm this.

Comment 2

[Wyatt Draggoo]

It's the built-in screen lock.

This is new with Firefox 3. Doesn't happen with 2.

Relevant settings:
System Preferences -> Desktop & Screen Saver -> Screen Saver -> Start Screen Saver: Set to 10 minutes
System Preferences -> Security -> General -> Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver: Checked

Just did some more testing. I unchecked "Require password to wake" and the behavior still exists.

Additionally, it happens no matter whether Firefox is in the foreground or the background, as long as the window is on the screen.

I am using Spaces with Leopard, and switched to another space to test earlier. So to recap:

Firefox in focus: no screen lock
Firefox on screen but Finder in focus: no screen lock
Firefox not on screen (but still running): screen lock

Comment 3

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

That's pretty much my exact set up and my system has no problem going into the screen saver and requiring my password to unlock.

Have any addons? maybe that's a difference.

Comment 4

[Johnathan Nightingale [:johnath]]

He suggests in comment 0 that he doesn't have addons, but I wonder if maybe the site he is displaying has flash or quicktime or some other thing that is performing strange mouse/keyboard magic.

Wyatt - can you try opening up firefox, closing all tabs (sorry, I know that can be a hassle - we appreciate your help trying to track this down) and once you are down to no extra tabs, typing:

about:blank

into your address bar?  That will load an empty, blank page that should not be invoking any flash, quicktime, or other complication.  It would be interesting to know if the computer goes into locked mode at that point.

I'm pretty sure this doesn't need to be kept confidential for security reasons, but I understand why Wyatt marked it that way, and I think it's fine to keep it flagged until we have a better idea of its origins.

Comment 5

[Wyatt Draggoo]

Jonathan, I think you may be right.

I quit Firefox, and opened it up again. I haven't been able to recreate the problem since. I think I've gone to most of the sites I normally do in the course of the day to test this. I started with about:blank, and then hit Bloglines, Google, MySpace (to see if it was a Flash problem), Apple Movie trailers (to see if it was Quicktime) and gmail.

I'm not sure if it was a site I went to, or just something funky, but I can't reproduce it now. I will keep trying when I get back from work...

Comment 6

[Johnathan Nightingale [:johnath]]

Thanks Wyatt - if we haven't heard from you in a day or two, we'll close this out as WORKSFORME, but if you do find a way to reproduce it, we'll try to get to the bottom of it.

Given that it seems intermittent and plugin-related at the moment, I think the benefits of more eyes outweigh the benefits of keeping a potential "attack" secret, so I'm unhiding this bug. 

Comment 7

[Wyatt Draggoo]

It didn't happen all weekend, but this morning when I woke up my screen lock hadn't kicked in again, and Firefox had the window focus.

Any more thoughts on how to troubleshoot this?

Comment 8

[Steven Michaud [:smichaud] (Retired)]

> Any more thoughts on how to troubleshoot this?

When/if it happens again, please note down as much as you can about
the page that Firefox is currently displaying.  It might also help to
know how many other tabs exist in that window, and how many other
windows are open.

I'm assuming (of course) that Firefox _did_ have the application focus
when this happened.

Here's a semi-random list of things to look for in the page that
Firefox is currently displaying:

Is the keyboard focus in a text field somewhere in the window?  (And
is the text-input cursor blinking there?)

Are there any plugins on the page?

What exactly is the URL?  (And is it publicly accessible, so others
can test with it?)

Comment 9

[Wyatt Draggoo]

The more it happens, the more I'm convinced the problem isn't with a specific page---or at least not with the page that is currently showing.

The past two times the only tab I have had up is my feeds page at Bloglines (the feeds won't be the same, so I don't think the URL will help, but: http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs ).

However, this morning, it happened with a Page Load Error due to a Network Timeout showing. The other tabs I have up are:

- Mozilla Firefox Start Page (http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official )
- Bloglines
- New features in Views 2 (http://www.masteringdrupal.com/screencast/new-features-in-views2/play )

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Do you still see this problem using the most recent versions of all components?
If you do not, please close the bug with resolution set to WORKSFORME. (Or INVALID if caused by an add-on)
If you do see the problem, please comment in the bug.

Comment 11

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.10 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.