1363052 - Web Apps - Re-launching a web app with an internal/external page opened, resets is to the homepage

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Web Apps (PWAs), defect, P1)

Description

[Oana Horvath [:ohorvath]]

Device: Nexus 6 (Android 7);
Build: Nightly 55.0a1 (2017-05-08);

Steps to reproduce:
1. Open a web app and navigate to an external link, that is opened inside the web app (eg. react-hn.appspot.com). 
2. Tap the device's home button.
3. With the web app minimized, tap on its home screen icon to launch it again.

Expected result:
The web app shows the external page from where it was minimized.

Actual result:
The web app is reset to the homepage.

Notes: not reproducing on Chrome web apps.

Comment 1

[Dale Harvey (:daleharvey)]

So this is done to handle the case in which an activity is being reused for another app http://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/mobile/android/base/java/org/mozilla/gecko/webapps/WebAppActivity.java#176, We may be able to do a better job of detecting when an activity is being reused

Comment 2

[Jan Henning [:JanH]]

I'm not sure if this would be entirely fool-proof, but when initially opening a tab for a web app activity, we store the local manifest path as received from the intent on the tab (https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/b21b974d60d3075ae24f6fb1bae75d0f122f28fc/mobile/android/base/java/org/mozilla/gecko/Tabs.java#1176). Maybe we can use that  to compare it with the new intent? I think the caller of onTabSelectFromIntent (and for symmetry onTabOpenFromIntent as well) could be modified to pass on the respective intent as well, so the WebAppActivity could then use it for comparison.

Comment 3

[Dale Harvey (:daleharvey)]

Resetting and will pick this up again when GeckoView PWA's relands

Comment 4

[Oana Horvath [:ohorvath]]

Still reproducing on Nightly 57.0a1, using GeckoView.

Comment 5

[Andreas Bovens [:abovens]]

Needs to be considered in the context of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1389236

Comment 6

[Joe Cheng [:jcheng] (please needinfo)]

Hi Oana, Can you verify again with the latest GeckoView PWA implementation?
I can't seem to reproduce the original bug
Thanks
Joe

Comment 7

[Oana Horvath [:ohorvath]]

There is a difference between how the PWA's external links are handled:
1. react-hn.appspot.com opens external links as internal pages, not in custom tabs. For this PWA, the pages are restored (but they should open in custom tabs and that's a different issue).
2. Twitter pwa opens external links in custom tabs, but these are not restored. For example, on Twitter: open an external link in a custom tab, minimize the web app and tap the launcher again. It won't restore the custom tab opened.

So, the issue is still reproducible having external links opened in custom tabs.

Comment 8

[James Willcox (:snorp) ([e-mail]) (he/him)]

We use custom tabs for external links now, so this no longer occurs.

Comment 9

[Oana Horvath [:ohorvath]]

The issue still occurs with using custom tabs for external links, as I've mentioned in comment 7 (with the mention that point #1 from that comment is invalid now). Let me know if I'm misunderstanding the expected behavior, or if I should reopen this bug.

Comment 10

[Oana Horvath [:ohorvath]]

Actually, I've just seen that Chrome does the same thing.

Comment 11

[James Willcox (:snorp) ([e-mail]) (he/him)]

Ah, I understand comment #7 better now. I think our current behavior is correct.