1374476 - Firefox release 20170616104331 broke my session restore

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Session Restore, defect)

Description

[Oliver Kluge]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:54.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/54.0
Build ID: 20170616104331

Steps to reproduce:

I stopped firefox to install Ubuntu/Linux Mint upgrade package to release  	20170616104331 (not by quitting, but by killing it). 


Actual results:

after that all attempts to restore the sessions failed.
I looked into sess-backups and sessionstore-backups, there I found what appeared to be the upgrade backup. But none of these files workes as sessionstore.js.

When I set them into the profile directory and rename them to sessionstore.js then Firefox will start into a totally empty page (when I have automatic session reload active). When I have the default page active, I can click on restore the last session. Which also results in an entirely blank page.

The chronic feature of restoring the previous session is always grayed out, even when I present another upgrade backup as either sessionstore.bak or previos.js.



Expected results:

The dialog "oops that should not have happenéd" should have come up. But even when I manually go to about:sessionrestore, then the dialog comes, but is completely empty.

Unfortunately my backup sessionstores are way to large to atttach here (many many megabytes)...

I have had a similiar experience a long while ago (also filed a bug report, but the problem went away by its own).

Comment 1

[Oliver Kluge]

I tried to check one of those sessionstore backup files. At first glance, I cannot see how they are broken. They are really big (200 Mbyte, but for the number of tabs open that would not surprise me. FF took about 10 GBytes of RAM with this profile loaded. At this size, I cannot use gedit to look into the file, but looking into it with a hex editor it looked fine.

So I installed jparse, and it does not display errors. I produces the beginning of the file (I write this because in another bug that was blamed for not loading sessionstore.js (668359) but I do not meet the criteria presented there. The file starts with

{ "_closedWindows" : [  ], "global" : {  }, "selectedWindow" : 0, "session" : { 
"lastUpdate" : 1497978044968, "recentCrashes" : 0, "startTime" : 1497910286792 }
, "version" : [ "sessionrestore", 1 ], "windows" : [ { "_closedTabs" : [ { "clos
edAt" : 1497910276495, "closedId" : 0, "iconLoadingPrincipal" : "SmIS26zLEdO3ZQB
gsLbOywAAAAAAAAAAwAAAAAAAAEY=", "image" : "chrome:\/\/browser\/skin\/preferences
\/in-content\/favicon.ico", "pos" : 4, "state" : { "attributes" : {  }, "entries
" : [ { "ID" : 5, "charset" : "", "docIdentifier" : 5, "docshellUUID" : "{5fb6cc
ef-61f0-4fb1-a3c7-6e11641bbc7f}", "originalURI" : "about:preferences", "persist"
 : true, "structuredCloneState" : "AgAAAAAA8f8LAAAABAD\/\/3AAYQBuAGUARwBlAG4AZQB
yAGEAbAAAAA==", "structuredCloneVersion" : 8, "title" : "Einstellungen", "trigge
ringPrincipal_base64" : "SmIS26zLEdO3ZQBgsLbOywAAAAAAAAAAwAAAAAAAAEY=", "url" : 
"about:preferences" } ], "hidden" : false, "iconLoadingPrincipal" : "SmIS26zLEdO
3ZQBgsLbOywAAAAAAAAAAwAAAAAAAAEY=", "image" : "chrome:\/\/browser\/skin\/prefere
nces\/in-content\/favicon.ico", "index" : 1, "lastAccessed" : 1497910276494, "us
erContextId" : 0 }, "title" : "Einstellungen" } ], "closedAt" : 1497978037325, "
closedId" : 0, "height" : 1034, "screenX" : 140, "screenY" : 80, "selected" : 2,
 "sizemode" : "normal", "tabs" : [ { "attributes" : {  }, "entries" : [ { "trigg
eringPrincipal_base64" : "SmIS26zLEdO3ZQBgsLbOywAAAAAAAAAAwAAAAAAAAEY=", "url" :
 "about:sessionrestore" } ], "formdata" : { "id" : { "sessionData" : { "_closedW
indows" : [  ], "global" : {  }, "selectedWindow" : 1, "session" : { "lastUpdate
" : 1497910011769, "recentCrashes" : 9, "startTime" : 1497909562548 }, "version"
 : [ "sessionrestore", 1 ], "windows" : [ { "_closedTabs" : [  ], "busy" : true,
 "cookies" : [ { "host" : "support.mozilla.org", "name" : "geoip_country_name", 
"originAttributes" : { "addonId" : "", "appId" : 0, "firstPartyDomain" : "", "in
IsolatedMozBrowser" : false, "privateBrowsingId" : 0, "userContextId" : 0 }, "pa
th" : "\/de\/kb\/", "value" : "Germany" }, { "host" : "support.mozilla.org", "na
me" : "geoip_country_code", "originAttributes" : { "addonId" : "", "appId" : 0, 
"firstPartyDomain" : "", "inIsolatedMozBrowser" : false, "privateBrowsingId" : 0
, "userContextId" : 0 }, "path" : "\/de\/kb\/", "value" : "DE" } ], "height" : 8
87, "screenX" : 132, "screenY" : 111, "selected" : 8, "sizemode" : "normal", "ta
bs" : [ { "attributes" : {  }, "entries" : [ { "triggeringPrincipal_base64" : "S
mIS26zLEdO3ZQBgsLbOywAAAAAAAAAAwAAAAAAAAEY=", "url" : "about:sessionrestore" } ]
, "formdata" : { "id" : { "sessionData" : { "_closedWindows" : [ { "_closedTabs"
 : [  ], "closedAt" : 1496863417897, "closedId" : 341, "cookies" : [ { "host" : 
"www.gettyimages.de", "httponly" : true, "name" : "unisess", "originAttributes" 
: { "addonId" : "", "appId" : 0, "firstPartyDomain" : "", "inIsolatedMozBrowser"
 : false, "privateBrowsingId" : 0, "userContextId" : 0 }, "path" : "\/", "value"
 : "YVQ4bTFqeUpPNWtIU3A0d3NnYjgvS0lEQVZBTGJPRFZTRmxtYllYYjJYMllGNzEvRVI4M2FkWHgz

At least this is the start of the jparse output which at least does not look broken to me. ghex tells that the file actually starts with

{"version":["sessionrestore",1],"windows":[{"tabs":[{"entries":[{"url":"about:sessionrestore","triggeringPrincipal_base64":"SmIS26zLEdO3ZQBgsLbOywAAAAAAAAAAwAAAAAAAAEY="}],"lastAccessed":1497977501715,"hidden":false,"attributes":{},"index":1,"formdata":{"id":{"sessionData":{"version":["sessionrestore",1],"windows":[{"tabs":[{"entries":[{"url":"about:sessionrestore","triggeringPrincipal_base64":"SmIS26zLEdO3ZQBgsLbOywAAAAAAAAAAwAAAAAAAAEY="}],"lastAccessed":1497909809176,"hidden":false,"attributes":{},"index":1,"formdata":{"id":{"sessionData"

which looks decent to me, but I don't know how a valid structure should look like.

Comment 2

[Oliver Kluge]

I installed the add-one about sessionstore, that gives me another about-metapage, like the name says: about:sessionstore.

This is the result:
about:sessionstore
Session store size: 216,172,822 bytes.
Disk writes to sessionstore.js over an 8 hour day: 415,051,818,240 bytes (415 GB)
(up to .. actual writes may be ~25-50% less)

startTime: Tue Jun 20 2017 00:11:26 GMT+0200 (CEST)
lastUpdate: Fri Jun 23 2017 18:52:29 GMT+0200 (CEST)
recentCrashes: 1
Settings:
browser.sessionstore.interval: 15000ms (default)
browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo: 10 (default)
browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo: 3 (default)
browser.sessionhistory.max_entries: 50 (default)
Timings:
nsISessionStore.getBrowserState(): 1536ms
JSON.parse: 1040ms
Time from firstPaint to sessionRestored at startup: ms
Size:
open windows:
open windows: bytes.
closed windows:
closed windows: bytes.
Open windows:
Closed windows:
Open tabs:
Closed tabs:
Tabs in closed windows:
Closed tabs in closed windows:

report generated in: ms

Okay, 200 Mbyte is large (but seems reasonable for so many tabs). But 400 GBytes per day from a 200 Mbytes file? sessionstore.js gets completely rewritten two thousand tiems per day? Why? And why are there no tabs listed by about:sessionstore (but then, FF still starts into empty white screen anyway).

Oh, by the way, I have Greasemonkey addon (but it idles at the moment, and I have Auto Unload Tab installed. Video Download helper, Right to Click, Old Location Bar and Privacy Badger. I have disabled Pocket, but about:support still says it is activated...

I configured Electrolysis for 16 concurrent processes, but only 4 are actually active (4x Web Content, 1xfirefox). That löoks little compared to the 16, but 4 Web Content processes just for empty white pages?

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bug 1374476 reports someting similar, but the addon involved is IE Tab.  And it's version 55

Comment 4

[Oliver Kluge]

This IS bug 1374476... Maybe you wanted to write another bugtrack number?

Comment 5

[Mike de Boer [:mikedeboer]]

Oliver, is this at all reproducible? Also with addons disabled? If so, we can work on a fix for your issue, otherwise there's not a real good way to help, I think.

Please let me know. I'm resolving this as 'incomplete' for now. Feel to re-open when you're able to provide more info. Thanks!