1407295 - Awesome bar and search bar remain split when opening a Firefox release 56 created profile with latest Beta 57 or latest Nightly

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Paul Oiegas [:poiegas], PM for Ecosystem QA (OMC, New Tab, Contextual, Nimbus, Experiments), Services QA (VPN, FxA/Subplat, Relay, Monitor), WebCompat QA, and Solo QA teams)]

[Notes]:
- This will probably affect all Firefox 56 users that will upgrade to v57 
- Exactly the opposite thing occurs when opening a Beta 57/Nightly 58 created profile on latest Release 56. The awesome bar and search bar are unified when they shouldn't.
- Also, when opening a Beta 57 or Nightly 58 created profile with the latest Firefox release 56, the toolbar buttons are wrongly arranged (see the recording at the end).  

[Affected versions]:
- Firefox 56.0
- Firefox Beta 57.0b7
- Nightly 58.0a1 

[Affected Platforms]:
- All Windows
- All Mac OS
- All Linux

[Prerequisites]:
- Latest Firefox Release v56.0, Firefox Beta 57.x and / or Nightly 58.0a1 are installed on the machine. 

[Steps to reproduce]:
1. Open Firefox latest release 56.0 with profile manager.
2. Create a new profile and choose to start the browser afterwards.  
3. Observe how the browser awesome bar and search bar are displayed.
4. Close the browser and open the same profile with latest Firefox Beta 57.0b7 or latest Nightly release v56.0.
5. Observe again how the awesome bar and search bar are displayed.

[Expected result]:
- The awesome bar and search bar are displayed unified when the same profile is opened with latest Beta / Nightly browser.

[Actual result]:
- The awesome bar and search bar remain separated in latest Beta and  latest Nightly.

[Additional Notes]:
- Here is a screen recording of the issue https://goo.gl/cbJirj (mp4 uploaded on Drive).

[Regression]:
I don't think this is a regression but I will investigate more tomorrow and let you guys know if otherwise.

Comment 1

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Only new profiles created from 57 on are expected to get the unified urlbar experience for now.
So, off-hand what you describe sounds like what we expect.

Paolo worked on that, and can confirm my assumptions.

Comment 2

[Paul Oiegas [:poiegas], PM for Ecosystem QA (OMC, New Tab, Contextual, Nimbus, Experiments), Services QA (VPN, FxA/Subplat, Relay, Monitor), WebCompat QA, and Solo QA teams)]

Well, that's a bit strange in my opinion since we're releasing a whole new UI in 57. It would perfectly explain why the bars are unified. But of course, it's up to you guys. I don't know the details behind this so there is a good reason probably.  

What about the backward compatibility described on the other notes? If you open a Beta or Nightly created profile with latest 56 release, the bars are unified and the toolbar buttons are messed up. 
I imagine some of the users that upgrade to 57 and can't use their precious add-ons would choose to downgrade to 56 to keep using them. This issue will surely be encountered.

Comment 3

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to Paul Oiegas [:pauloiegasSV], Desktop Engineering QA from comment #2)
> Well, that's a bit strange in my opinion since we're releasing a whole new
> UI in 57. It would perfectly explain why the bars are unified. But of
> course, it's up to you guys. I don't know the details behind this so there
> is a good reason probably.  

Yes, we are not yet ready (we don't have all the analysis ready) to provide a smooth transition to the existing users. But we are confident that it will be a more appreciated experience for the new users.
We'll enable the unification for more users along the way, we can do that through a system add-on.

> What about the backward compatibility described on the other notes? If you
> open a Beta or Nightly created profile with latest 56 release, the bars are
> unified and the toolbar buttons are messed up. 

That's fine, what matters is the profile, not the version used, and we discourage downgrades. Plus we provided a very simple and visual pref in about:preference to undo the change.

Comment 4

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #3)
> > What about the backward compatibility described on the other notes? If you
> > open a Beta or Nightly created profile with latest 56 release, the bars are
> > unified and the toolbar buttons are messed up. 
> 
> That's fine, what matters is the profile, not the version used, and we
> discourage downgrades. Plus we provided a very simple and visual pref in
> about:preference to undo the change.

We don't provide UI on 56, but it's too late to change that. To fix the state of the toolbar, people can use the "restore defaults" button in customize mode. It's expected that we don't restore the pre-57 state when downgrading, as Marco already clarified.