1472599 - Can not set homepage to Custom URLs when browser.startup.page = 0

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect, P2)

Description

[Yanfang Liu]

STR:

1. Install Firefox 60.0 and set "When Firefox starts: Show a blank page" in Options.
2. Upgrade Firefox to 61.0 and restart Firefox.
3. Open Options => Home, set "Homepage and new windows" to a Custom URL, https://www.mozilla.org.
4. Restart Firefox.

Expected results:
Firefox restarts with https://www.mozilla.org and "Homepage and new windows" set to the same URL.

Actual results:
Firefox restarts with a blank page and "Homepage and new windows" set to Blank page.

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]:
recent regression in preferences

Kate, off-hand this looks like it's fallout from bug 1448971. Can you take a look?

Comment 2

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

We could still take a patch for 62/63, but I don't think I need to track for 62 beta.

Comment 3

[Kate Hudson :k88hudson]

This is more of a design question, since the "what to show at startup" pref and the custom home page pref have been combined into one; 

Should we migrate:

- the user's "what to show at startup" setting (which in this case is a blank page), or
- should we migrate the custom homepage pref and show that instead at startup?

Currently the former is implemented, but we could implement the latter if that makes more sense? What do you think Aaron?

Comment 4

[Kate Hudson :k88hudson]

(clearing the priority so this makes it into our triage)

Comment 5

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hey k88hudson - just so we're clear, is your team taking ownership over the triage state on this bug, and will be setting the Priority field on it?

Comment 6

[Kate Hudson :k88hudson]

That's correct!

Comment 7

[Aaron Benson]

This feels a bit of a toss up but I think the right thing to do is migrate the homepage pref since we've rolled "what you see at startup" into the new homepage and new windows setting.

Comment 8

[Andrei Oprea [:andreio]]

Attachment: Bug 1472599 - Reset browser.startup.page preference for older profiles

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/257768/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/257768/

Comment 9

[Andrei Oprea [:andreio]]

Comment on attachment 8992931 [details]
Bug 1472599 - Reset browser.startup.page preference for older profiles

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/257768/diff/1-2/

Comment 10

[Andrei Oprea [:andreio]]

The issue here is that Firefox 60 exposed `browser.startup.page` in the preferences [0] and this pref still influences what we do when we start a new session [1] loading about:blank if that is 0.
Currently if you have it set to 0 and switch to "Custom URL" the pref is not cleared, only "Default" will reset it.
Additionally while researching this I came across some issues with the Reset Defaults button due to the implementation of preferenceBindings that offers the Preference wrapper in about:preferences page:
* getting defaultValue can return null [2] if `.get` fails making it not a reliable way to reset the pref 
* the reset method [3] is also not reliable
`.hasUserValue` calls through to Services.prefs so that's ok.


[0] https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-esr60/rev/dd52b41d2b775e5c7261ce52795268b7670635fc/browser/components/preferences/in-content/main.xul#71
[1] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/6f86cc3479f80ace97f62634e2c82a483d1ede40/browser/components/sessionstore/content/aboutSessionRestore.js#182
[2] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/c296d5b2391c8b37374b118180b64cca66c0aa16/toolkit/content/preferencesBindings.js#564
[3] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/c296d5b2391c8b37374b118180b64cca66c0aa16/toolkit/content/preferencesBindings.js#316

Comment 11

[Kate Hudson :k88hudson]

Comment on attachment 8992931 [details]
Bug 1472599 - Reset browser.startup.page preference for older profiles

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/257768/#review264754

Ok, this fixes the issue in that it prevents preferences from being in a broken state for having started with startup=0 an setting a custom url. Thanks

Comment 12

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/f8e6e95065e9
Reset browser.startup.page preference for older profiles r=k88hudson

Comment 13

[Bogdan Tara[:bogdan_tara | bogdant]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/f8e6e95065e9

Comment 14

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau]]

Do you want to request uplift to beta62?

Comment 15

[Marius Coman [:mcoman], Ecosystem QA]

I have verified that the issue is no longer reproducible on Windows 10 x64, Arch Linux and Mac 10.13, with the latest Nightly build (63.0a1 Build ID - 20180723220051) installed. Now the "Homepage and new windows" option remains set to a "Custom URL" after following the steps from below:

1. Set the "Homepage and new windows" option, from "about:preferences>Home", to "Blank Page".
2. Update the browser.
3. Se the "Homepage and new windows" option to "Custom URL".
4. Restart the browser.

Comment 16

[Andrei Oprea [:andreio]]

Comment on attachment 8992931 [details]
Bug 1472599 - Reset browser.startup.page preference for older profiles

Yes it would be useful to have this patch uplifted.

Approval Request Comment
[Feature/Bug causing the regression]: Moving Activity Stream preferences to about:preferences
[User impact if declined]: Users who set blank page as homepage in 60 are unable to set custom url as homepage in 61
[Is this code covered by automated tests?]: No
[Has the fix been verified in Nightly?]: Yes
[Needs manual test from QE? If yes, steps to reproduce]: already tested
[List of other uplifts needed for the feature/fix]: n/a
[Is the change risky?]: no
[Why is the change risky/not risky?]: Small Patch. Patch has been tested in Nightly 
[String changes made/needed]: none

Comment 17

[Ritu Kothari (:ritu) (Inactive, please n-i to RyanVM, jcristau, or pascal)]

Comment on attachment 8992931 [details]
Bug 1472599 - Reset browser.startup.page preference for older profiles

Fix was verified on Nightly, seems low risk, Beta62+

Comment 18

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/23bc64507f53

Comment 19

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Bug 1434751 is missing on beta, only the first two chunks of the patch have been applied.

Comment 20

[Marius Coman [:mcoman], Ecosystem QA]

I have verified that the issue is no longer reproducible on Windows 10 x64, Arch Linux and Mac 10.13, with the latest Firefox Beta build (62.0b11) installed, using the steps from comment #15.