1141385 - Users are told to Refresh Firefox without being warned of results

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[FredMcD]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:35.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/35.0
Build ID: 20150122214805

Steps to reproduce:

Several users have reported they were told ( by the browser ? ) to Refresh
Firefox. BUT they are not being told of the consequences of doing so.
Re: loose add-ons, settings, and other things.



Actual results:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1051238#answer-701669
User: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/Virginiagrey

"Firefox suggested I do a Refresh to speed up browser etc. I did so and everything was wiped out. Firefox logo still appears in start bar but when I click on it no firefox browser appears, totally blank tabs appear. All bookmarks wiped out in all three browsers I use: Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. I am totally in trouble."


Expected results:

I have not check of late, but in the past, when I did a refresh (reset) I was warned.
Is the warning still displayed or not?

Comment 1

[John Hesling [:John99] (NeedInfo me)]

I think maybe better warnings could help, but the example given is rather atypical. Possibly it would be better basing this bug on a more ordinary and reproducible example. But then what are we asking, is Refresh not doing as expected ?


Rather a quick comment, sorry no bug numbers or screenshots etc. 
The browser and KB articles will suggest a Refresh. 

IIRC 
The browser also suggests a refresh if Firefox has not been used for a while.
And there is a bug for an enhancement to include an Addons list or similar in future Refresh.

You mention specifically loss of bookmarks. That should not occur, as the Refresh tries to preserve bookmarks. That in itself will be a separate bug; or the real issue in this instance; but may be near impossible to get STR.

As for the  bookmarks wiped out in all three browsers that is indicating a bigger problem, probably not directly related to Firefox or Firefox Refresh.

Comment 2

[FredMcD]

(In reply to John Hesling [:John99] from comment #1)
> As for the  bookmarks wiped out in all three browsers that is indicating a
> bigger problem, probably not directly related to Firefox or Firefox Refresh.

That was a direct comment from the user. The link to his comment is posted above.
I know that major things like Bookmarks, History, and Passwords are suppose to
be copied to the new profile, but some have complained this does not happen.

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

We already direct users to a sumo article before they reset, and the reset button in about:support offers another warning. I think we have plenty of warnings.