1391008 - Post-startup crash safe mode dialog recommends refresh profile too much, implications unclear

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Migration, defect, P3)

Description

[Manish Goregaokar [:manishearth]]

Nightly sometimes shows the "start in safe mode" dialog after an update. I assume this shows up on releases too when addons break weirdly.

The dialog looks something like:

Nightly closed unexpectedly while starting. This might be caused by add-ons or other problems. You can try to resolve the problem by troubleshooting in Safe Mode

You can also skip troubleshooting and try refreshing Nightly.

[Refresh Nightly] [Start in Safe Mode]


------


I have a couple issues with this. Firstly, "Refresh Nightly" is the first button -- generally (IMO), the first button in such a dialog is the "recommended action" (also should be highlighted differently, e.g. on OSX the OK button is usually blue and the cancel button is white). Refresh Nightly shouldn't be pushed so strongly.

Secondly, the name is very deceptive; "Refresh" doesn't make it sound like it will start a new profile, it makes it sound like it may delete some temporary state. We should have bigger warning bells around this, and also possibly a dialog that explains how to restore the old profile after a refresh.

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Verdi, can you take a look please? comment #0 is a good general overview, but see also this twitter thread: https://twitter.com/ManishEarth/status/897110564459102208 .

Making people upset about getting a refresh when they didn't intend it (and/or not making it clear where to find their data) are Bad, and we should do better. Can you come up with a rephrase and/or a separate popup that explains what refresh does before actually going ahead with it?

(x-ref bug 1388611 for figuring out if/when/how/why refresh would break, or what to do about that, which is a separate discussion.)

Comment 2

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

(In reply to Manish Goregaokar [:manishearth] from comment #0)
> Nightly sometimes shows the "start in safe mode" dialog after an update. I
> assume this shows up on releases too when addons break weirdly.

This should only automatically appear after multiple consecutive startup crashes. In that case pushing for a Refresh seems appropriate to me since we're going to lose the user anyways if Firefox can't start. If you're seeing this dialog in a different scenario then there may be a regression with startup crash detection (perhaps by bug 789945 which changed its behaviour somewhat).

Comment 3

[Manish Goregaokar [:manishearth]]

> This should only automatically appear after multiple consecutive startup crashes. 

I've gotten it twice after hitting the update nightly button. Once very recently (today morning or yesterday), and once a few weeks ago.


I do sometimes close firefox with killall firefox (not killall -9 firefox) but this is reasonably rare, and I've never gotten this dialog then.



We should probably show this when we have some data that safe mode isn't working, IMO.

Comment 4

[Verdi [:verdi] Best to slack me]

(In reply to :Gijs from comment #1)
> Can you come up with a rephrase and/or a separate popup that
> explains what refresh does before actually going ahead with it?

So getting that dialog and clicking Refresh opens another dialog which does describe what Refresh does. It says, "Start fresh to fix problems and restore performance. This will: Remove your add-ons and customizations. Restore you browser settings to their defaults."

That said, it should not loose all your data like in that twitter thread. That's terrible and is definitely a bug.

We can make refresh better. We should fix the bug to migrate add-ons (post 57) and we could create an undo feature for the cases where something goes wrong/automatically undo it if we detect that all your data is missing.

Comment 5

[Manish Goregaokar [:manishearth]]

> It says, "Start fresh to fix problems and restore performance. This will: Remove your add-ons and customizations. Restore you browser settings to their defaults."

That's a lot of text; someone might just read the first sentence. I think someone else on the subreddit had the same problem.

I did, the first time I encountered this, and ended up thinking it was just a clearing of session storage (so you start off with a fresh firefox window with all your prefs and addons but no old tabs)


"Delete your profile" should be something that's not hidden behind vague terms like "refresh" and "start fresh".

Comment 6

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

Attachment: Screen Shot of variant after startup crashes

(In reply to Manish Goregaokar [:manishearth] from comment #0)
> I have a couple issues with this. Firstly, "Refresh Nightly" is the first
> button -- generally (IMO), the first button in such a dialog is the
> "recommended action" (also should be highlighted differently, e.g. on OSX
> the OK button is usually blue and the cancel button is white). Refresh
> Nightly shouldn't be pushed so strongly.

You can see in the screenshot that "Start in Safe Mode" is the blue button (default) and I confirmed that hitting Enter does start in Safe Mode.

> Secondly, the name is very deceptive; "Refresh" doesn't make it sound like
> it will start a new profile, it makes it sound like it may delete some
> temporary state.

I agree. Originally "Reset" was used everywhere instead of "Refresh" and I think the original term was better.

> We should have bigger warning bells around this, and also
> possibly a dialog that explains how to restore the old profile after a
> refresh.

I personally would be fine with linking to the SUMO page or adding an undo option but I don't think it's on the roadmap in the short term.

Comment 7

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

(In reply to Manish Goregaokar [:manishearth] from comment #3)
> > This should only automatically appear after multiple consecutive startup crashes. 
> 
> I've gotten it twice after hitting the update nightly button. Once very
> recently (today morning or yesterday), and once a few weeks ago.

If you see this "Nightly closed unexpectedly while starting." dialog after a proper restart or shutdown then please file a bug with STR.

If you just see the Safe Mode dialog without that "Nightly closed unexpectedly while starting." text then you may be accidentally holding the option key when the browser restarts since that key during startup triggers Safe Mode on macOS.

> I do sometimes close firefox with killall firefox (not killall -9 firefox)
> but this is reasonably rare, and I've never gotten this dialog then.

That or even just a Ctrl-C a few times in a row is what triggers this if you're seeing the "Nightly closed unexpectedly while starting." variant.

> We should probably show this when we have some data that safe mode isn't
> working, IMO.

Most users don't want to take the time to troubleshoot and just want to get their task done. It's easier to simply go to another browser rather than troubleshoot Firefox issues so a Refresh is to avoid losing those users who would probably leave if we didn't off a Refresh.

This bug is really talking about multiple different issues and has subjective opinions so it doesn't seem very actionable as a whole TBH.