1301670 - Some version of Firefox have no menu bar in Ubuntu Unity

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Widget: Gtk, defect, P2)

Description

[gerd.neumann]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:50.0) Gecko/20100101 /
Build ID: 20160909004004

Steps to reproduce:

Install Firefox Developer Edition in Ubuntu. I had this problem on 14.04 and 16.04 natively. But I can also reproduce in a VirtualBox image. So you can just install VirtualBox and the image "Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial (Final Version)" from http://www.osboxes.org/ubuntu/: VirtualBox (VDI) 64bit, MD5: 52e08e7a0ce228fa40ca4a47c69bbaf3
See here how to import this vdi file into VirtualBox.



Actual results:

When hovering the mouse over the title bar, then there is no File|Edit etc. menu. When long pressing Alt (because short pressing is a Unity action) then the menu bar appears, but is blurry. See Screencast, I'll attach.


Expected results:

The menu should be there.

This only happens for the Firefox Developer Edition, so probably is theme related. Does not happen with Firefox Stable and also not with Nightly (which have the same Theme).

See also Bug 1176610. But I think this here is something different because it just happens with the dark Developer Edition.

Comment 1

[Jens]

Attachment: unity-no-menu-firefox-dev-edition.ogv

Comment 2

[gerd.neumann]

(In reply to gerd.neumann from comment #0)
> Install Firefox Developer Edition in Ubuntu. I had this problem on 14.04 and
> 16.04 natively. But I can also reproduce in a VirtualBox image. So you can
> just install VirtualBox and the image "Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial (Final Version)"
> from http://www.osboxes.org/ubuntu/: VirtualBox (VDI) 64bit, MD5:
> 52e08e7a0ce228fa40ca4a47c69bbaf3
> See here how to import this vdi file into VirtualBox.

Forgot the link: https://blogs.oracle.com/oswald/entry/importing_a_vdi_in_virtualbox

Comment 3

[gerd.neumann]

And I do not know about the regression range as it does not happen in Nightly, but it used to worked about half a year ago with Firefox Developer Edition. Then it stopped working. Sorry, I just now realized the nature of this bug in order to report it more properly.

Comment 4

[Jens]

Don't know if important but in Firefox stable there is a ui.use_unity_menubar setting in about:config which is set to true. There is no such setting in the Firefox Developer Edition. Adding it manually does not change anything, still no menubar (even after restart).

So I guess the Firefox and Nigtly stable branch/theme goes through some kind of refinement for Ubuntu/Unity whereas Developer Edition does not.

Comment 5

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Jens from comment #4)
> Don't know if important but in Firefox stable there is a
> ui.use_unity_menubar setting in about:config which is set to true. There is
> no such setting in the Firefox Developer Edition. Adding it manually does
> not change anything, still no menubar (even after restart).
> 
> So I guess the Firefox and Nigtly stable branch/theme goes through some kind
> of refinement for Ubuntu/Unity whereas Developer Edition does not.

Are you using a stock release/nightly build and have you disabled the ubuntu add-on? I expect it's the add-on or Ubuntu's code modifications that do that.

Comment 7

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Chris, is this a known issue? Does Firefox's GTK integration need changing for this to work "properly", or something?

Comment 8

[Jens]

(In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #5)
> Are you using a stock release/nightly build and have you disabled the ubuntu
> add-on? I expect it's the add-on or Ubuntu's code modifications that do that.

I have this problem with the FDE downloaded directly from the firefox site and also with the one built using ubuntu-make (though this also just downloads afaik). I just checked and the "Ubuntu Modifications" addon was disable (which says it is not e10s compatible btw). I enabled it now and restartet, but still no menu bars.

Comment 9

[Chris Coulson]

The video seems to show the stock Firefox (without our menubar changes) behaving as expected, although I'm not sure why the menubar appears to be blurry.

Comment 10

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

This appears to be working as expected. The menu bar is hidden unless you select to display it by default.

If this isn't the case, please reopen with str showing the issue.

Comment 11

[Jens]

Attachment: unity-menu-working-firefox-release.ogv

> This appears to be working as expected. The menu bar is hidden unless you select to display it by default.

No, this is not how it should work in Ubuntu. In FDE (Aurora) the menubar is missing as shown in the video of https://bug1301670.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=8789777 of Comment 0. 

The Firefox (Release) behaves correct. You do not seem to be using Unity/Ubuntu, so here's a video with Firefox Release, attached to this comment: Please compare to FDE video above. FDE should work like Release on Ubuntu.

> If this isn't the case, please reopen with str showing the issue.

The STR are given in Comment 0.

I'll try to add a regression range. IIRC it was working some months ago.

Comment 12

[Jens]

Ok, I could track down when the menubar became blurry. I put this into another Bug 1308407.

On the menubar not being visible: It seems that the menubar integration has never been working in Developer Edition (even not in 2014 when it was the normal themed "Aurora").

> in reply to Chris, comment 9:
> The video seems to show the stock Firefox (without our menubar changes) behaving as expected

Chris, could you elaborate on this? What are "our menubar changes" and how can I get these working in Firefox Developer Edition (FDE)? I like to use FDE, but I also like to have it nicely integrated into my OS (like Firefox Release is).

Comment 13

[Chris Coulson]

(In reply to Jens from comment #12)
> Ok, I could track down when the menubar became blurry. I put this into
> another Bug 1308407.
> 
> On the menubar not being visible: It seems that the menubar integration has
> never been working in Developer Edition (even not in 2014 when it was the
> normal themed "Aurora").
> 
> > in reply to Chris, comment 9:
> > The video seems to show the stock Firefox (without our menubar changes) behaving as expected
> 
> Chris, could you elaborate on this? What are "our menubar changes" and how
> can I get these working in Firefox Developer Edition (FDE)? I like to use
> FDE, but I also like to have it nicely integrated into my OS (like Firefox
> Release is).

You seem to be comparing Firefox Developer Edition from mozilla.org with Firefox Release provided by Ubuntu, which contains a change to make the menubar appear in the shell. Firefox Developer Edition (plus other builds downloaded from mozilla.org) don't have this change, and the video you've attached to the bug show it behaving as expected (with the exception of the blurry menubar).

Comment 14

[Jens]

> You seem to be comparing Firefox Developer Edition from mozilla.org with Firefox Release 
> provided by Ubuntu, which contains a change to make the menubar appear in the shell. 
> Firefox Developer Edition (plus other builds downloaded from mozilla.org) don't have this 
> change, and the video you've attached to the bug show it behaving as expected (with the 
> exception of the blurry menubar).

Thanks for clarifying. But I think this is a very technical way of looking at it. From a user's perspective it's broken, no menu bars (unless I looong press Alt). Sure, there's a reason why, but it's broken. If I install Chrome Dev Channel (or Beta) on Ubuntu, I have an integrated, working menubar. Chrome dev = good appeal; Firefox = bad appeal. Developer advocacy anybody?

I know Ubuntu is not the largest Firefox population around: Linux (already tiny) > Ubuntu > Dev Edition. But still if you want to hunt for Early Adopters, please fix such things. If I run Firefox, a hundred others follow me (because they ask me what to run, or I even install for them ;)

Comment 15

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

Testing to see if we can reproduce the missing menu bar using aurora under Ubuntu (14.04 or 16.04).

Comment 16

[Tracy Walker [:tracy]]

(In reply to Jim Mathies [:jimm] from comment #15)
> Testing to see if we can reproduce the missing menu bar using aurora under
> Ubuntu (14.04 or 16.04).

Yes, on hover, the title bar goes blank instead of displaying menu bar with latest DevEd on Ubuntu 16.04

Comment 17

[Luke]

I also see this on 14.04 with Firefox Developer Edition 52.0a2. Clicking where the top menu should be, opens a window behind it.

Comment 18

[Luke]

Happens with or without "Ubuntu Modifications" extension enabled.

Comment 19

[Bill Cumming]

This just happened to me.

The following programs were upgraded today and I lost the menus in the title bar :

unity-control-center-faces:amd64 (15.04.0+16.10.20161003.1-0ubuntu2, 15.04.0+16.10.20170214-0ubuntu1), 
unity-control-center:amd64 (15.04.0+16.10.20161003.1-0ubuntu2, 15.04.0+16.10.20170214-0ubuntu1), 
firefox-locale-en:amd64 (52.0~b6+build1-0ubuntu0.16.10.1, 52.0~b7+build1-0ubuntu0.16.10.2), 
libunity-control-center1:amd64 (15.04.0+16.10.20161003.1-0ubuntu2, 15.04.0+16.10.20170214-0ubuntu1), 
firefox:amd64 (52.0~b6+build1-0ubuntu0.16.10.1, 52.0~b7+build1-0ubuntu0.16.10.2), 
 
I'm running Ubuntu 16.10 :
Linux 4.8.0-38-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Wed Feb 8 14:27:17 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Both 51.0.1 and 52.0b7 (52.0~b7+build1-0ubuntu0.16.10.2) versions have the same problem on my system.

Comment 20

[Luke]

Now this bug apparently was just added to Firefox beta 52b7! Please fix this before the next stable messes it up.. unless this is unity bug with the latest Firefox, something Ubuntu team needs to be notified of?

Comment 21

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Chris, the last few comments seem to be from users running release/beta as distributed by Ubuntu...

Comment 22

[Bill Cumming]

Bug looks fixed.

Just installed : firefox:amd64 52.0~b9+build2-0ubuntu0.16.10.2
menu is back where it should be.

Comment 23

[Chris Coulson]

(In reply to :Gijs from comment #21)
> Chris, the last few comments seem to be from users running release/beta as
> distributed by Ubuntu...

The menubar integration with Unity was disabled temporarily because the changes from bug 1276669 made Firefox abort at startup. It's fixed now.

Comment 24

[imyxhuang]

Hi, I'm having a similar problem and I'm not sure if it's related.

Running developer edition 55.0b6 64bit from the tarball (since the Aurora ppa is deprecated now)

Once I switched from the ppa to this new version, I noticed that the menu bar is gone, like many of you said. However, for some reason if I press alt or select to show the menu bar a little separate menu bar pops up below the unity one, kind of like Windows... (Screenshot: https://ibb.co/bs9Acv)

What the heck? 

Side note: For some reason, after the transition from ppa to tarball new tab does not autofocus the awesome bar, as it used to. Unrelated?

Comment 25

[imyxhuang]

(In reply to Chris Coulson from comment #23)
> (In reply to :Gijs from comment #21)
> > Chris, the last few comments seem to be from users running release/beta as
> > distributed by Ubuntu...
> 
> The menubar integration with Unity was disabled temporarily because the
> changes from bug 1276669 made Firefox abort at startup. It's fixed now.

Is it supposed to be only fixed on the PPAs or also on the tarball from mozilla.org?
If the fix is only for the PPA, we really need either a developer edition PPA or an option to implement global menubar from the tarball.

Comment 26

[gerd.neumann]

@imyxhuang: What you see is to be "expected" when using the normal tarballs from mozilla.org. For packaged firefox as it comes from Ubuntu these have some modification to better integrate with Ubuntu's Unity as said in Comment 5. I guess it would be quite some work to do these Unity customizations for Beta and Nightly (Dev Edition is based on Beta, https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/04/simplifying-firefox-release-channels/)

I know it is not good but I personally got used to it (I use Nightly directly from mozilla), but I guess there are higher priorities right now. FWIW, Ubuntu has abandoned Unity and will switch to Gnome 3 again (beginning with 17.10 afaik), and mozilla is busy with Quantum performance and Photon UI changes... So I guess this problem will be solved (outdated) in 2018 by other changes ;)

Comment 27

[gerd.neumann]

I'm closing since I think there is nothing actionable here at the moment.