806103 - An alert box does not take in user input and update the status of Firefox settings accordingly.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Ashafie78]

Attachment: BrowserSettingsChangeErrorMessage.jpg

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:16.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/16.0
Build ID: 20121024073032

Steps to reproduce:

This is a random problem, but if you need to recreate it you can install some malware that attempts to change your browser settings every once in a while.  This would in turn cause the alert box that is causing the problem appear.  Once Firefox detects the browser settings change it pops up a message that says "An unknown change was detected on your browser's search settings".


Actual results:

I get a screen message that randomly appears and says "An unknown change was detected on your browser's search settings".  The only way to get rid of this alert box is to close it by right clicking on it.  The event handler and/or subsequent function that should be called for this message is not called because nothing happens when the user selects either of the two options that are made available by this alert message and clicks yes.  This is why this alert box keeps popping up over and over again and the user has to keep closing it because it does not take any input from the user as it should.


Expected results:

After the alert message appears, the browser should allow the user to select from either of the two options that are shown and then click yes because this is the intended function of this alert box.  Once this is done this alert message should not reappear.  If the user clicks on "I am aware of this change and approve it", then this alert box should go away because now it knows that the user is OK with the current settings.

Comment 1

[Ashafie78]

This is almost a critical error because the alert box that I described does not go away.  Even when it is closed manually, it reappears in half a minute.

Comment 2

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

I can't find that text anywhere in Firefox source code. Could it be from an add-on you have?

Alex: did we issue a hotfix to check/reset rogue search settings?

Comment 3

[Benjamin Smedberg]

This looks to me like the webpage itself is showing that alert, but I can't be certain of that. In any case, I don't think this needs to remain private.

Comment 4

[Ashafie78]

It is not coming from the HTML because I get this error message regardless of which website my browser is launching.  If it is from an add-on, then the add-on is launching a new instance of Firefox directly and popping up this error message.  I don't think that this is the case, though.  I think that some third party program or add-on keeps changing Firefox settings.  Then, Firefox detects this and launches this popup message.  Here is what I would have done.  Use a free application called Examine32 to look for "An unknown change was detected on your browser's search settings" in all files within all folders and subfolders of the Firefox source code.  If you do this I think you will find the source code for this particular error message.  Then go figure why the even handler and subsequent function that comes with it are not working.

Comment 5

[Ashafie78]

So what happened?  Why is nobody assigned to this bug?  Is everyone on vacation?

Comment 6

[Loic]

(In reply to Ashafie78 from comment #5)
> So what happened?  Why is nobody assigned to this bug?  Is everyone on
> vacation?

You're not alone, there are hundreds of new bugs filed every day.
If your issue is related to a malware, so delete the malware from your computer.

If it's an add-on, try in safe mode: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode

In addition, try with a new profile: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

Comment 7

[Stefan Weiss [:sir_none]]

Hello,

I have just found your bug-report and was wondering, that there was no update from you after comment 6.
can you please give us a short feedback if this solve your problem?

thank you for your help

Comment 8

[Stefan Weiss [:sir_none]]

no answer from reporter.

please reopen this bug-report if you think it was closed wrong or you have new information to reproduce.