1467662 - Auto-sync doesn’t happen (must open settings and tap sync manually)

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Android Sync, defect)

Description

[Daniel]

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

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install Firefox on Android and enable Sync
2. Use Firefox
3. Open Settings: Sync and lok at “Last sync” timestamp


Actual results:

The timestamp will be the last time I manually clicked Syncronize now in Settings.


Expected results:

Synchronization should happen in the background throughout the day.

Comment 1

[Oana Horvath [:ohorvath]]

Hi! Thank you for your report!
As far as I know, the sync rules are defined here (I hope they are still valid): https://wiki.mozilla.org/CloudServices/Sync/FAQ#When_do_syncs_occur.3F

I verified with one Android device + one desktop PC synced, just by browsing (not saving bookmarks & passwords) that the sync didn't start after 2 hrs. The devices were left idle for aprox 1 hr in that period. After that period, I've opened again a few tabs on desktop and mobile, then saw the mobile device syncing, but it didn't show the tabs opened on desktop yet.
The desktop browser didn't sync at all.
 
Saving a bookmark on mobile, the sync started after ~2 min.
Saving a bookmark on desktop, didn't sync automatically. Just after closing/opening some tabs.

So there are some delays in sync, and I think that it's a known issue, but someone more experienced with this should have a look and decide.

Comment 2

[Daniel]

Thanks for responding, Oana! I’ve got more details to add here.

Android System Settings: Users and Accounts: Firefox: Configure Sync: Account sync is automatically disabled after a few hours, and sync stops working after that happens. If I manually switch the option to On then sync will work for a few hours again before the option is automatically flipped back to Off and sync stops working again. Sync stops working entirely when the option gets disabled.

I also tested with Firefox Beta and a new Firefox Account and found that the Account sync option for the corresponding Users and Accounts account entry was disabled by default.

Comment 3

[Daniel]

I actually just opened the system setting and flipped it to on. It said “syncing” for about four minutes, before saying “last sync: $two_days_ago”. I flipped it off and on again, and it still said it was last synced two fays ago. I did turn it on again two days ago, and it worked then. Not sure why it’s not working now. The only difference I can think of is that when I enabled it two days ago, I was using Firefox and opened settings directly to turn it on. Now I switched the setting but without opening Firefox first.

While I was typing out this reply, I had the Account sync screen open on my phone beside me and witnessed it changing from On to Off.

I can manually go to Firefox: Settings: Sync and tap Synchronize now and it will sync.

Comment 4

[Daniel]

Update: I opened Firefox Settings: Sync and tapped Synchronize now. It took about four minutes and then it says “Last synchronized two days ago”. Android System Settings: Users and Accounts: Firefox: Configure Sync: Account sync is now disabled again. I re-enabled it and reopened Firefox Settings: Sync and tapped Synchronize again, and this time it actually synced successfully and I confirmed that new bookmarks and history entries from my desktop appeared on mobile and visa-versa.

A few minutes later I checked on System Settings: Users and Accounts: Firefox: Configure Sync: Account sync again and it was disabled yet again.

Comment 5

[Stefan Deiac]

Hi, I tried to reproduce your issue on the latest version of Nightly 68.0a1 (2019-03-27) and Release 66.0.2 but I wasn't able to reproduce it. The sync starts after a few seconds after I bookmark a page on Desktop and the 'Account sync' from 'Configure sync' remain enabled after a few minutes.
Devices:

• Nexus 6 (Android 6.0.1);
• Nokia 6 (Android 7.1.1);
• Motorola Nexus 6 (Android 7.1.1);
• One Plus 5T (Android 9).

Daniel, can you retry with the latest version of Firefox for Android and Desktop, please? I'll wait for your updates, thanks.

Comment 6

[BMO Automation]

We have completed our launch of our new Firefox on Android. The development of the new versions use GitHub for issue tracking. If the bug report still reproduces in a current version of [Firefox on Android nightly](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fenix) an issue can be reported at the [Fenix GitHub project](https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/). If you want to discuss your report please use [Mozilla's chat](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix#Connect_to_Matrix) server https://chat.mozilla.org and join the [#fenix](https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#fenix:mozilla.org) channel.