1495754 - URL becomes previously accessed address after restarting Firefox from about:profiles

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Session Restore, defect, P3)

Description

[Peter Magyari (Desktop QA)]

[Affected versions]:
Firefox Nightly 64.0a1 (20181002100236)
Firefox Beta 63.0b10 (20180927143327)
Firefox 62.0.2 (20180920131237)
Firefox 60.2.1 ESR (20180920175354)

[Affected platforms]:
-Windows 10(x64) 
-Windows 7 (x86)
-Ubuntu 16.04
-macOS 10.12

[Steps to reproduce]:
1.Start Firefox using a new profile.
2.Go to about:profiles and click on the [Restart normally] button in the upper right corner of the page.
3.Start Firefox using the same profile you've used before.
4.Using the same tab, navigate to any other URL.
5.Using the same tab once again, navigate back to about:profiles and click on the [Restart normally] button.
6.Start Firefox using the same profile after restarting.

[Expected result]:
After restarting the browser the URL stays the same as before(about:profiles).

[Actual result]:
After restarting the URL becomes the previously accessed address.

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Can you please clarify these steps. In particular when you say "Start firefox" please be specific about exactly you are starting firefox (command line, shortcut, etc.).

Comment 2

[Peter Magyari (Desktop QA)]

Hi,

I'm starting the browser using the shortcut, but that does not make a difference.
The issue is that after step 6, the address in the URL bar is the previously opened page's address although the loaded page is about:profiles.

The issue also occurs on the latest Firefox 66.0.4 (20190504212614), Firefox Nightly 68.0a1 (20190505213908) and Firefox Beta 67.0b16 (20190502232159)

Comment 3

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Well I can't reproduce this on OSX. But this is going to be a session store issue.

Comment 4

[Mike de Boer [:mikedeboer]]

I don't think there's enough information here to definitively conclude that this is a session restore issue, since I know of no other bug that shows the wrong address for the restored page. This would make about:profiles the first one.
There's no other in-content page that provides the option to restart... so perhaps we need to train sessionstore to deal with this special one?

Comment 5

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to Mike de Boer [:mikedeboer] from comment #4)

I don't think there's enough information here to definitively conclude that this is a session restore issue, since I know of no other bug that shows the wrong address for the restored page. This would make about:profiles the first one.

As far as I'm aware there is nothing special about the implementation of about:profiles.

There's no other in-content page that provides the option to restart... so perhaps we need to train sessionstore to deal with this special one?

There is also nothing special about the code used to restart from that page.

I've managed to reproduce this now and it does affect other about: pages:

1. Open a local development build of Firefox with a new profile (mach run is fine).
2. Navigate to an about: page (about:config and about:profiles tested).
3. Go to File -> Restart.
4. Firefox reopens with the about: page showing.
5. Navigate to www.google.com.
6. Click the back button.
7. Go to File -> Restart.

At this point Firefox reopens with the about: page showing but https://www.google.com (note this is the url of the page loaded, not what was actually typed into the address bar) in the address bar.