1298065 - Regression - Nightly does not remember Privacy History settings correctly

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Codacoder]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:48.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/48.0
Build ID: 20160726073904

Steps to reproduce:

In Nightly:

Options/Privacy/ "Never Remember History"


Actual results:

Nightly *sometimes* does not request a restart.
Nightly does not remember the setting and reverts to "Use custom settings"

Comment 1

[Codacoder]

Attachment: Steps I used

Kamil asked for detailed steps.

Comment 2

[Codacoder]

Attachment: 1298065-02.gif

This one shows:

 - checkboxes changing without user doing anything

 - failing to offer "Restart Nightly" dialog after setting "Never Remember History"

Comment 3

[Kamil Jozwiak [:kjozwiak]]

Thanks for filing the bug Codacoder :) Are you running any add-ons by any chance? If you run fx in safe mode [1], does it fix the problem?

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode

Comment 4

[Codacoder]

(In reply to Kamil Jozwiak [:kjozwiak] from comment #3)
> Thanks for filing the bug Codacoder :) Are you running any add-ons by any
> chance? If you run fx in safe mode [1], does it fix the problem?
> 
> [1]
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-
> mode

No addons. Tried safe-mode anyway - same screwy behavior.  Weird huh.  This certainly was working within a month ago (using this very setting to test those tab tear-off bugs).

Comment 5

[Paul Silaghi, QA [:pauly]]

I'm not sure this is a bug.
"Use custom settings for history / Always use private browsing mode" it's basically the same thing as "Never remember history".

Comment 6

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️) (PTO: May 24 - June 2nd)]

Looking at the recording from Codacoder in comment 1, this does appear to be bad behaviour. We're somehow not persisting the session preference across the restart.

Comment 7

[Codacoder]

(In reply to Paul Silaghi, QA [:pauly] from comment #5)
> I'm not sure this is a bug.

I'm pretty sure it is. 

> "Use custom settings for history / Always use private browsing mode" it's
> basically the same thing as "Never remember history".

But the checkboxes *change* between open/close sessions - why?

Watch the GIFs.

Comment 8

[Codacoder]

(In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) - (Needinfo me!) from comment #6)
> Looking at the recording from Codacoder in comment 1, this does appear to be
> bad behaviour. We're somehow not persisting the session preference across
> the restart.


Right.

Part of the problem appears to be Firefox's failure to offer to restart (note: *sometimes*). Restarts imply settings that need to (re)read in circumstances where they can't be acted upon dynamically/"live"... right?  And if that doesn't happen, it's no surprise they're not persisted correctly.

Comment 9

[Michelle Funches - QA]

QA Chiming in: I cannot reproduce entirely. However I do observe:
Failure to remember History Setting
Failure to prompt to a "restart" message when changing the History setting.
Version 	48.0.2
Build ID 	20160823121617
I have been applying mozregression, I will post again if I have any success with it.

Comment 10

[Kamil Jozwiak [:kjozwiak]]

Codacoder, are you still seeing this behaviour with the latest version of nightly?

Comment 11

[Codacoder]

(In reply to Kamil Jozwiak [:kjozwiak] from comment #10)
> Codacoder, are you still seeing this behaviour with the latest version of
> nightly?

No, it's certainly changed. Now it appears that Pauly (comment 5) might be valid? But even so, it seems whichever of "Remember" or "Never remember" you choose, you end up with "Custom" which, even if that's correct in terms of which checkboxes become selected, is a confusing UX for end users. Said another way, if the "Remember" and "Never remember" settings are meant to gloss over the detail, why then show the detail and confuse the user?

As Mike said, it's bad behavior (even if it's "correct").