1460904 - Defunct URL and search bars in on Ubuntu 16.04 + 18.04

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect, P5)

Description

[mhohmann]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0
Build ID: 20180509235650

Steps to reproduce:

URL bar part:

1. Start Firefox
2. Start typing something into the URL bar.
3. Hit enter.

Search bar part:

1. Start Firefox
2. Start typing something into the search bar.
3. Hit enter.


Actual results:

URL bar part:
While typing into the URL bar, no suggestions from the history or bookmarks appear. After typing a complete address and hitting Enter, the entered address is loaded.

Search bar part:
While typing into the search bar, no suggestions or search engine icons appear. Upon hitting Enter, nothing happens, no search is performed.

The problem (both parts) persists also after disabling all plugins. However, in safe mode, the problem disappears.


Expected results:

URL bar part:
While typing into the URL bar, suggestions from the history and bookmarks should appear.

Search bar part:
While typing into the search bar, suggestions and search engine icons should appear. Upon hitting Enter, a search should be performed.

Comment 1

[Gingerbread Man]

(In reply to mhohmann from comment #0)
> The problem (both parts) persists also after disabling all plugins. However,
> in safe mode, the problem disappears.

Is the problem reproducible in a brand new profile?
https://support.mozilla.com/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

If yes, please also test tomorrow's Nightly build in that brand new profile.
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/all/

Comment 2

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Also, do you see anything in the error console? You can turn on the pref browser.search.log to see if there are any errors.

Comment 3

[mhohmann]

With a new profile, the behavior is different. First of all, instead of two separate URL and search bars, there is a combined location bar. When I start typing, it shows both URLs and search suggestions.

When I switch back to the old profile, the problem returns. Note that this problem occurs independently on two different computers (one running Ubuntu 16.04, the other one 18.04) with separate profiles (each of them on a local file system, not shared), but similar settings.

I have also switched on browser.search.log and followed all the steps in the original bug description, but there is no output at all.

Comment 4

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Did you open the console before you tried a search? I'm surprised to not see anything on the console at all.

Comment 5

[mhohmann]

Yes - actually me too. I changed the browser.search.log setting, restarted Firefox (just in case), opened the console and started typing / searching. There was no output.

Comment 6

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Would you be willing to send me your search.json.mozlz4 file from your profile and the browser.search preferences from your prefs.js to see if I can recreate?

Comment 7

[mhohmann]

I assume these contain the search engines and about:config settings? Sure. Should I send them by mail or attach them here?

Should I also include the browser.urlbar preferences? I have made a few changes there as well, regarding the display of search suggestions / searching from the URL bar, so maybe this has some effects as well.

Also I should mention that when I downgrade to FF 59.0.2, the problem is gone, and is back when I upgrade again to FF 60.0, so it is indeed bound to this version.

Comment 8

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

This sounds like maybe bug 1460190.  Could you please try the next Nightly and report back whether the problems still happen?

Comment 9

[mhohmann]

I checked with Nightly and the problem still exists.

However, it is different from bug 1460190. If I enter a full URL into the URL bar and press enter, the website is loaded - but I have to type the full URL myself, there is no completion or suggestions.

There seems to be an exception, though. If I start typing a domain from the beginning, then the whole domain name is suggested. This does not happen if I start any other part of the domain name or URL, only the beginning.

Comment 10

[mhohmann]

Attachment: search.json.mozlz4

Search engine settings for (hopefully) reproducing the bug.

Comment 11

[mhohmann]

Attachment: browser.search and browser.urlbar from prefs.js

Configuration settings from browser.search and browser.urlbar to (hopefully) reproduce the bug.

Comment 12

[mhohmann]

Since the problem still persists with the latest nightly and I have not yet received a reply to my question where to send the search.json.mozlz4 file from my profile and the browser.search preferences from my prefs.js, I have added them here as attachments. Hopefully this will help to reproduce and fix the problem. Currently I can only use the downgraded FF 59.0.2.

Comment 13

[Gingerbread Man]

(In reply to Mike Kaply [:mkaply] from comment #6)
> Would you be willing to send me
(In reply to mhohmann from comment #12)
> my question where to send

For future reference, you could've clicked the name above comment 6 for the e-mail address. Files are normally attached here publicly, except when they contain potentially sensitive information.

Comment 14

[mhohmann]

(In reply to Gingerbread Man from comment #13)
> For future reference, you could've clicked the name above comment 6 for the
> e-mail address. Files are normally attached here publicly, except when they
> contain potentially sensitive information.
Thanks for mentioning this. I actually do have the mail address (as it was in the automated mail I received being subscribed to the bug), and I was also assuming that files are *usually* attached here. However, since I do not know much about the internals of the files in the FF profile, or how much sensitive information they contain (and thus can be posted here or not), and I was not sure whether it is accepted to send files by personal mail / this was the intended meaning of "send me", I asked for clarification.

Comment 15

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I'm moving this to address bar. This does not seem search related.

I'm attaching the prefs they are setting.

Comment 16

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Attachment: Prefs being set

Text equivalent of gzipped attachment.

Comment 17

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Sorry, one more question. Are you using the Snap or something else?

Comment 18

[mhohmann]

Actually I haven't heard of Snap until now, so I guess the answer is no. I use the standard Ubuntu repository version, and also tested FF nightly, if that is what you're referring to. The result is the same in both cases. Also not using this, if that's what you mean:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/958900

Comment 19

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Please open the about:support page, go to the Places Database section, and run the maintenance there, then post the output here.
Finally restart the browser, did anything change?

Comment 20

[mhohmann]

I followed your instructions using FF Nightly; however, nothing changed, the problem persists. Here is the output I got:

> Task: checkIntegrity
+ The database is sane
> Task: invalidateCaches
+ The caches have been invalidated
> Task: checkCoherence
+ The database is coherent
> Task: expire
+ Database cleaned up
> Task: vacuum
+ Initial database size is 40960 KiB
+ The database has been vacuumed
+ Final database size is 40960 KiB
> Task: stats
+ Database size is 40960 KiB
+ pragma_user_version is 41
+ pragma_page_size is 32768
+ pragma_cache_size is -2048
+ pragma_journal_mode is wal
+ pragma_synchronous is 1
+ History can store a maximum of 111115 unique pages
+ Table moz_places has 86142 records
+ Table moz_historyvisits has 121866 records
+ Table moz_inputhistory has 1183 records
+ Table moz_hosts has 0 records
+ Table moz_bookmarks has 99 records
+ Table moz_keywords has 0 records
+ Table sqlite_sequence has 1 records
+ Table moz_anno_attributes has 8 records
+ Table moz_annos has 1762 records
+ Table moz_items_annos has 72 records
+ Table sqlite_stat1 has 18 records
+ Table moz_bookmarks_deleted has 24 records
+ Table moz_meta has 4 records
+ Table moz_origins has 7111 records
+ Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_inputhistory_1
+ Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_hosts_1
+ Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_keywords_1
+ Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_anno_attributes_1
+ Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_bookmarks_deleted_1
+ Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_origins_1
+ Index moz_places_hostindex
+ Index moz_places_visitcount
+ Index moz_places_frecencyindex
+ Index moz_places_lastvisitdateindex
+ Index moz_historyvisits_placedateindex
+ Index moz_historyvisits_fromindex
+ Index moz_historyvisits_dateindex
+ Index moz_bookmarks_itemindex
+ Index moz_bookmarks_parentindex
+ Index moz_bookmarks_itemlastmodifiedindex
+ Index moz_places_url_hashindex
+ Index moz_places_guid_uniqueindex
+ Index moz_bookmarks_guid_uniqueindex
+ Index moz_annos_placeattributeindex
+ Index moz_items_annos_itemattributeindex
+ Index moz_keywords_placepostdata_uniqueindex
+ Index moz_bookmarks_dateaddedindex
+ Index moz_places_originidindex
> Task: _refreshUI

Comment 21

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Unfortunately I have no further ideas, I'd suggest to use the Reset Firefox feature from about:support, that will lose some of the data, but should retain bookmarks & history.