1417721 - tabs.Tab.favIconUrl intermittently returns undefined even though favicon is showing in tab

Status: NEW

(WebExtensions :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[u462496]

This shows up eg, doing tabs.query.

I have had the opportunity to verify this does actually happen, though it is intermittent and I'm unable to give an STR.

This includes favicons served by http(s) URLs.

I have witnessed this with both discarded and loaded tabs.

Comment 1

[u462496]

Attachment: WE_ZTEST_tab_attributes_and_updates.xpi

Here is an extension used for polling the tabs in the current window and printing out the favIconUrl's to the console.  Just click the browserAction icon.

Comment 2

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Bulk move of bugs per https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1483958

Comment 3

[Wolfgang Faust]

I am running into the same problem with my extension "IdentFavIcon Quantum" (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/identfavicon-quantum/), and I'm told that the Favioli addon has a similar issue in Firefox. The extension sometimes doesn't detect that the page already has a favicon and so overrides it. This appears to be completely arbitrary; any given tab may or may not have the favIconUrl set. A user reports (https://github.com/wolfgang42/identfavicon-quantum/issues/2#issuecomment-435579105)--and I tend to agree--that the problem has gotten worse since Firefox 63. I'm considering uninstalling my own addon since this is causing too much confusion.

Comment 4

[nyanpasu64]

I'm a user of https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/identfavicon-quantum/ . I observed that this issue only happens on sites without <link rel="icon">.

Sites without <link rel="..."> to a favicon. The extension usually (not 100% of the time) thinks they have no favicon, and replaces with an identicon:

• https://thedailywtf.com/
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/coreaudio/pkey-device-friendlyname

Sites with <link rel="shortcut icon"> or <link rel="icon"> and are unaffected:

• https://news.ycombinator.com
• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1417721 (this page)
• https://github.com/
• https://www.swalladge.net/archives/

Comment 5

[Wolfgang Faust]

The reason that identfavicon-quantum doesn't experience this problem on sites with a <link rel="icon"> is because it contains a workaround that explicitly checks for such a tag and disables itself on that page if it finds one. The underlying Firefox bug occurs regardless of whether or not the page has the tag; from bug reports and my own experiences it seems to disproportionately affect certain sites, but which sites seems to differ between users.

Comment 6

[ariasuni]

I can reproduce with identfavicon-quantum on https://thedailywtf.com/.