1124369 - Firefox Sync mixes up sort order of bookmarks in Unsorted Bookmarks folder

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Sync, defect, P5)

Description

[acerle]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux i686; rv:34.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/34.0
Build ID: 20141127111547

Steps to reproduce:

I tried to use FF-Sync for about 2 years. Today I tried it again and unfortunately the sort order of the bookmarks in the folder "Unsorted Bookmarks" is mixed up again after running sync. 
This happens, if FF-sync runs automatically or if I press sync-button in FF-menue.
I used AddOn-free profiles.
Syncing-Process with XMARKS works 100% perfect!


Actual results:

That means, the source-bookmarks (in the first profile) are still ok till I change bookmarks in the second profile. When I sync back then, I have also the wrong order in my source-bookmarks.-( 
If I sync my bookmarks back to the source after changing something on the second computer, I have also different subfolders from my self-created folders in the "unsorted"-folder. Example: I have a folder "news" with a subfolder "digital". After second sync, my subfolder "digital" is a subfolder in "unsorted bookmarks".

This seems to happen, if I sync with more than a few hundreds bookmarks in one folder. Less than hundred folders or bookmarks always seem to work.-)

Though it is the "Unsorted"-folder, it is really fretfull, that I cant find my last added bookmarks.-/

I synced between: - 2 desktop-profiles (Linux Mint) - 3 desktop-profiles (Linux Mint & MAC & Windows) - android and desktop (Linux)

with the same result.

First, I thougt it was solved because of this thread: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1016555#question-reply

But after up to 15 Minutes syncing-process, I got not the correct sort-order as well.



Expected results:

After syncing between different FF-profiles should the sort order be the same as it was before syncing, also if you work with hundreds of bookmarks in the "Unsorted bookmarks"-folder.

The sort order should only change if I change it manually in one synced profile.

Comment 1

[acerle]

Maybe this bug is relevant for this issue:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=626341

Comment 2

[blackwind]

I'm experiencing this as well, and I'm seeing reports of it dating back as early as 2010. From a user experience point of view, this is a critical bug -- I simply can't use Sync until it's fixed, so although I'm positively itching to start using Fennec, it's currently completely worthless to me. Could someone take a long-overdue look at this one?

Comment 4

[alex_mayorga]

¡Hola!

Ended up here while trying to help a user on https://support.mozilla.org/es/questions/1158440 so this seems to be a thing yet this bug was UNCONFIRMED.

Setting as NEW.

¡Gracias!
Alex

Comment 5

[pfoo]

Since recently, every time I add a new computer to my firefox sync account, bookmarks in my "personnal bar" are randomly sorted.
I'm quite sure this wasn't happening in 2016. Should this be considered as another bug ?

Comment 6

[timfoote]

(In reply to pfoo from comment #5)
> Since recently, every time I add a new computer to my firefox sync account,
> bookmarks in my "personnal bar" are randomly sorted.
> I'm quite sure this wasn't happening in 2016. Should this be considered as
> another bug ?

Same with me, ever since version 54 I think.  I've only noticed it the last couple of weeks.  I keep restoring from backup and syncing again but then 1 or 2 days later it goes back to resetting the order.

Comment 7

[Helmut]

Hello.
I have been having the same issue for a few days now. I also keep restoring them from backup but they get all mixed up again.
Details : 
 - FF 54 on Linux or Windows
 - My bookmarks include over 2000 items.
 - it seems all the bookmarks are there and located in the right folders, but within every folder (including the root one), all the items (sub-folders, bookmarks, separators) are not in the order I had sorted them. 
 - If I restore from backup (.json file for example), I get them again in the right order, but after syncing with other computers, they get all mixed up again.
 - The sorting order in which get mixed up seems to be always the same (I did over 6 or 7 attempts)
 - I tried disconnecting the computers from the FF Sync account, changing the password of the FF Sync account and reconnecting them after restoring the bookmarks from backup on the 1st computer to be reconnected to the FF Sync account. As soon as I reconnected the 2nd computer to the FF Sync account, the bookmarks get mixed up again in both computers.

Comment 8

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Kit or Mark, would it be helpful to look into what's going on here in more detail given comment #7 which seems to suggest they can reproduce this reliably? Or are we working on a fix on one of the dependency tree bugs, or something else? Either way, it seems an update to this bug might be helpful for folks. :-)

Comment 9

[Helmut]

Hello. Just a comment to confirm I could reproduce the bug in series with several computers all connected to my Sync account. The bug occurred every single time.
In the meantime I have switched to the Xmarks add-on for bookmarks synchronization.

Comment 10

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

I'm fairly confident this is bug 1352233, fixed in 55.

We really should have requested uplift for that patch; please accept my apologies for this problem making it to release.

Comment 11

[Lina Butler [:lina]]

Hi Helmut, pfoo, and timfoote, thanks for posting these steps! I think Mark's assessment is accurate, and bug 1352233 should help, but I also have some more questions.

Helmut, when you restore your bookmarks, how long do you wait before syncing your other devices? I have ~3300 bookmarks, and it takes about 5 minutes to sync everything on a fast connection. If another device syncs in the meantime, it's possible for it to see an incomplete view of what's on your first device, download what's there so far, then upload new bookmarks from the second device.

I think Android will reupload the incomplete order in all cases; Desktop will do this if you have new bookmarks on the second device that aren't on the first one. We're working on a fix for that (bug 1305563), but it's going to be a significant change. I'm going to break that bug down into work that we can land incrementally.

You also mentioned the bookmarks are consistently reordered on the second device. Is there anything special about that wrong order: for example, do you see folders first, followed by bookmarks? Some other order? Do you see bookmarks being added to the end of the unsorted folder on the second device when it syncs?

Comment 12

[Helmut]

Hello.

I did my tests using a backup file (.json) from the version of the bookmarks I wanted to keep. I basically sent myself by email the file so I could start proceed to the tests using the same version of the bookmarks from any computer. In all tests, I had one computer to which I was restoring my bookmarks from the backup file (and it showed them sorted in the proper order) - the source - and another one that was syncing through FF Sync - the recipient -  and resulted with the bookmarks being messed up, even when initially (before the sync) they were in the right order.

I did several tests (between 6 and 10) and did every time let FF Sync sync automatically. All computers were connected to my home network which is optic fiber connected to the Internet. There was no device syncing except the two ones used for the test. However I did the test with 3 computers, but only running two at the same time.

I don't remember seeing anything special about the order of the bookmarks in the recipient. Folders were coming first but apart from that I couldn't see anything special (such as alphabetical order).

Comment 13

[timfoote]

Hi Kit,

This all started when I added a new computer to firefox sync.  It would usually reset the bookmark order once per day on each device.  I would restore from backup, sync again and hope for the best but the issue would always come back the next day.  I've currently unsync'd all devices waiting for the bug to be fixed.  I was going to move back to xmarks but the lack of multiprocess support stops me from doing so!

Cheers