1332745 - when going to a site requesting authentification, and a tab with that site happens to be open in another tab in another window on another desktop, the password prompt happens on that other desktop

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Password Manager, defect, P3)

Description

[Alain Knaff]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0
Build ID: 20161213204132

Steps to reproduce:

I visited a site requiring authentication, while unbeknowst to me a URL on that same site was open in another firefox window on another desktop


Actual results:

the password prompt appeared on that other (inactive) desktop, making it appear as if loading the site hung (whereas in reality there was a password prompt, but just in a non-obvious place)


Expected results:

password prompts should show up in the same window that last triggered their appearance, where the user expects it.

Comment 1

[u554753]

Hi Alain,

Can you provide more precise steps to reproduce? ie: What URL were you visiting that caused this issue?

Also, try downloading Firefox Nightly and see if the issue can be reproduced there.

Comment 2

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/a8a01adcd032
Split runtime-wide pointer udpates from per-zone updates in compacting GC r=sfink

Comment 3

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/a8a01adcd032

Comment 4

[Simon Lindholm]

Wrong bug number?

Comment 5

[Jon Coppeard (:jonco)]

Sorry, that was meant for bug 1332744.

Comment 6

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Resolving as incomplete because there's been no response since comment #1 2 months ago.

Comment 7

[Alain Knaff]

(In reply to u554753 from comment #1)

Hi Alain,

Can you provide more precise steps to reproduce? ie: What URL were you
visiting that caused this issue?

Issue occurs on any URL that has a login form. Example: https://www.facebook.com/

Also, try downloading Firefox Nightly and see if the issue can be reproduced
there.

Issue still occurs today (just tested moments ago).

Comment 8

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Alain Knaff from comment #7)

(In reply to u554753 from comment #1)

Hi Alain,

Can you provide more precise steps to reproduce? ie: What URL were you
visiting that caused this issue?

Issue occurs on any URL that has a login form. Example: https://www.facebook.com/

I'm confused, what kind of password prompt would come up as a dialog when navigating to facebook? Are you talking about the master password? Or something else?

Comment 9

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(This is doubly confusing because I wouldn't expect the master password prompt to appear at all if there were already other open windows where you weren't prompted before...)

Comment 10

[Alain Knaff]

Sorry, please disregard my comment #8, I think I got mixed up with bug 1386699 (input freezes).

As for this bug here (password prompts happening on another desktop), it still happens, but only if the other browser window on the other desktop was already displaying a password prompt before.

The password prompt that I mean is actually the HTTP password prompt for a specific site, no master password involved.

How to reproduce:

1. On desktop A, visit a site S that is protected with a HTTP password
2. Password box pops up
3. Don't fill it it / don't submit it
4. Go to another desktop (B)
5. Visit the same site.
6. Site appears hung, as firefox won't pop up a new password prompt on desktop B, as there is already one on desktop A for the same site.

This can happen "in the wild" if for some reason you get distracted at step 2, and move away from the password prompt in order to complete some unrelated task, and by the time you're done with that interruption, you don't remember that you already have the site S open on desktop A, and thus innocently open it again on B.

N.B. the problem doesn't happen if you clicked cancel in the password box after step 2 or 3. In that case, step 5 correctly pops up a password box on desktop B.

Suggestions for better behavior:

1. If this occurs, just pop up a second password box on desktop B, and if answered correctly, pop down all alternative password boxes for that site that might exist in browser windows elsewhere
   or
2. Give a visual indication in the pager (such as flashing the outline of the browser window on desktop A in the pager), so that user understands what's going on.

What not to do:
3. Yank the user back to desktop A where the first password prompt sits => no, such behavior would have a whole set of other issues...

Comment 11

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Honza, do you know what happens in http-land here? Given bug 1312243 was fixed there, I guess this one should live there, too...

Comment 12

[Honza Bambas (:mayhemer)]

This is being coalesced in the login manager, in toolkit:
https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/3300072e993ae05d50d5c63d815260367eaf9179/toolkit/components/passwordmgr/LoginManagerPrompter.jsm#880-887

A simple solution may be to bring the window where the prompt is pending up. This is a minor issue, not worth the effort, though. It's more as a bit to consider when we finally decide to improve and change our http auth UX completely, from the ground.

Comment 13

[Honza Bambas (:mayhemer)]

So, moving back :)

Comment 14

[Honza Bambas (:mayhemer)]

(Related to bug 475053, that had to be split to two, necko and toolkit parts)