1457714 - Bookmark bar is truncated when Firefox is loading in the background of Windows 10 sign in screen

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, defect, P3)

Description

[Etienne Dechamps]

Steps to reproduce:

1. In the Windows Settings, "Accounts", "Sign-in options", make sure that the "Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device after an update or restart" option is enabled. (This should be the case by default.) This makes Windows start the user session automatically in the background of the login screen after a shutdown or restart.
2. Start Firefox with a new fresh profile. The bookmark toolbar will initially look like this: https://imgur.com/JJK2ue9
3. Make Firefox start on Windows login, for example by adding it as a shortcut in the "Start-up" Start Menu folder.
4. Restart the computer.
5. When the Windows login screen appears, give it some time to let Firefox start in the background. (This is what the aforementioned Windows setting allows.)
6. Enter credentials to unlock the computer.
7. Firefox appears on the screen.

Expected result:

The bookmark toolbar looks normal: https://imgur.com/JJK2ue9

Actual result:

The bookmark toolbar is truncated, only showing the first bookmark: https://imgur.com/aDuapTZ

Additional information:

This bug affects Firefox 59.0.2, and most likely all other versions - I can reproduce it in Nightly 61.0a1 2018-04-28. As far as I can tell this only affects Windows 10 >=1709, because that's when the "Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device after an update or restart" option was introduced.

It doesn't matter what the contents of the bookmarks folder are; it will only show the first bookmark.

If I were to speculate, I would suspect this is some kind of UI drawing problem, because if I hide and then show the bookmark bar again, all the bookmarks appear as normal. Presumably, it might be that the UI drawing code is confused when it's running behind the Windows login screen, and in particular it might be confused about the window position/size.

Workarounds:

- Don't start Firefox automatically on Windows start-up. (But I want to have it start on Windows start-up.)
- Turn off the "Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device after an update or restart" Windows setting. (This has user experience implications - most notably, it makes the computer start-up experience slower because Windows won't load the session before credentials are entered.)
- After Firefox has loaded, hide the bookmark toolbar through the right click context menu, then show it again. The bookmark bar won't be truncated after such cycling. (This has to be done every time, which is of course tedious.)

Comment 1

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

Hi Etienne,

1. Does this happen on every restart or only when there is an update applied?
2. Is there a "chevron" at the right side of the bookmarks toolbar (>> symbol) that when clicked will show the hidden bookmarks?

Comment 2

[Etienne Dechamps]

(In reply to Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me) from comment #1)
> 1. Does this happen on every restart or only when there is an update applied?

This happens on every restart or shutdown, update or not. The "steps to reproduce" above can be taken literally. I can reproduce it 100% of the time.

(Some background information: in Windows 10 1709, the "Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device after an update or restart" setting was introduced and enabled by default. The effect of that setting is that Windows now starts the user session in the background before the user enters their credentials, so that the Desktop is completely ready and fully loaded as soon as the user logs in. Unfortunately, this has the side effect of triggering the present bug if Firefox is set up to start automatically.)

> 2. Is there a "chevron" at the right side of the bookmarks toolbar (>>
> symbol) that when clicked will show the hidden bookmarks?

No, there is no such chevron on the bookmarks toolbar. The only way to reveal the hidden bookmarks is to hide the bookmark bar through the right-click menu, and then show it again.

Comment 3

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

Thanks for the extra details.

I'm marking this as P5 because though it is pretty annoying, users have to opt-in to having Firefox as a start-up process and also use the hidden-by-default bookmarks toolbar.

Comment 4

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

Hmm, upon second thought I'll move this to P3 since users will not easily figure out why their bookmarks toolbar has appeared to "lose" their data.

Comment 5

[Etienne Dechamps]

Great news: it appears that Windows 1803 solves this problem. After upgrading to 1803 I noticed that the issue was gone on my workstation, and I confirmed in a VM that I indeed can't reproduce it on a fresh 1803 Windows install.

Therefore I don't think this issue needs any action from Mozilla - it will fix itself as 1803 rolls out. Feel free to close if you agree.