1479737 - Container settings reset when container addon is installed

Status: NEW

(WebExtensions :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[Jan-Erik Rediger [:janerik]]

(This was reported by a user on Twitter, I verified it in current nightly).

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install the multi-account addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/?utm_source=mac-addon
2. Change `privacy.userContext.longPressBehavior` in about:config to 1
3. Restart the browser

Expected behavior:

User-modified values like `privacy.userContext.longPressBehavior` stay as modified.

Current behavior:

Value is reset to default.

--

Looks like it forces all-default values here: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/033d45ca70ff32acf04286244644d19308c359d5/toolkit/components/extensions/parent/ext-contextualIdentities.js#109-113

Comment 1

[Andrew Swan [:aswan]]

Attachment: Bug 1479737 Only change container settings on addon install/enable

Comment 2

[Jonathan Kingston [:jkt] he/him]

:aswan - Is this a regression? Does it repro consistently?

Comment 3

[Andrew Swan [:aswan]]

I don't think its a regression and yes, it happens consistently.  I was going to ask you a few questions but you have needinfo blocked :)

Specifically, I don't know what the longPressBehaviorPress pref does, should we avoid setting it when an extension is activated if the user has already changed it to something other than default?  Or, even better, are there any plans to just turn on containers by default so we wouldn't have to do anything special at all for extensions?

Comment 4

[Jonathan Kingston [:jkt] he/him]

> I don't know what the longPressBehaviorPress pref does

It controls a long press on the + new tab button. We could potentially remove that however in reality if we have reset these prefs we likely have reset their containers too.

> are there any plans to just turn on containers by default

No current plans :(

I can look into this when I get back. I know this was intermittently happening with a race condition in the past, ideally we should think if there is a cleaner way to control these prefs on addon update/restart etc.

Comment 5

[Benjamin Herr]

Just to be clear here, I've been using the same container with its cookies and everything for ages, so that's not getting reset, but I still need to set privacy.userContext.longPressBehavior to 1 every startup, and it doesn't only affect long-press behavior in that if it's set to 1 I don't need to long-press to open a new container tab.

Comment 6

[Rob Wu [:robwu]]

When work is being done on this bug, we should also check whether the behavior of bug 1549204 changes, and vice versa.