1503378 - 63.0 (64-bit) update changed homepage setting

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Steve Kinney]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.11; rv:63.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/63.0

Steps to reproduce:

I updated to 63.0 (64-bit). My default homepage is Google. 


Actual results:

When the update was installed, I restarted Firefox and it attempted to load a file location that has not been on my computer for many years. I hit the home icon again, and it attempted the same load. The location was a previous local folder that was the target for image or video files downloaded from Firefox.

I entered Google and saw the correct autocomplete url as the first prompt, selected it, let the page load, went to Firefox preferences, reset the homepage to current page, and it corrected.


Expected results:

It should have loaded my previously saved homepage setting for Google. It certainly should NOT have changed to a local file location that doesn't exist anymore.

Comment 1

[u554753]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for reporting this issue. Do you remember what version of Firefox you updated from?

Comment 2

[u554753]

In addition to Comment 1:

Did you have "Restore Previous Session" checked?

Comment 3

[Steve Kinney]

(In reply to Grover Wimberly IV [:Grover-QA] from comment #1)
> Hi Steve,
> 
> Thanks for reporting this issue. Do you remember what version of Firefox you
> updated from?

I was updating from 57.0.1 (64-bit)
(In reply to Grover Wimberly IV [:Grover-QA] from comment #2)
> In addition to Comment 1:
> 
> Did you have "Restore Previous Session" checked?

Hi Grover, glad someone picked this up. I never check "restore previous session" and always clear recent history before closing Firefox and shutting down.(In reply to Grover Wimberly IV [:Grover-QA] from comment #1)
> Hi Steve,
> 
> Thanks for reporting this issue. Do you remember what version of Firefox you
> updated from?

I restored from 57.0.1 (64-bit). After I had this problem, I reinstalled that old version and everything went back to normal. But I will still continue to get those "critically out of date" warnings trying to get me to make the same mistake by updating to the latest version. If this bug is fixed, I will still be hesitant to update anything in the future until some time has passed and reviews are posted. I really can't waste a lot of time -- and I am sure everyone in this community feels the same way.

Comment 4

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

The homepage settings as well as other user settings aren't touched during an update but there have been changes in Firefox in the past that have made things like this happen.

Since the setting is a preference moving over to Firefox -> Preferences for further triage.

Comment 5

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hi Steve Kinney,

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the update. I gather you probably realize this, but I must warn you that running out of date versions of the browser is pretty dangerous - there are known and published vulnerabilities in older versions of Firefox that attackers can take advantage of. Here's a list of the known vulnerabilities that we've addressed since 57 shipped:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox/

I can work with you to get your homepage set up to point at Google like you're used to. If you type about:support in your address bar, and press enter, can you click "Copy text to clipboard", and paste the contents of your clipboard to a new comment here in this bug?

Comment 6

[Steve Kinney]

Mike, first, I looked at the report after entering "about.support" as you instructed, and saw some alarming information listed. Before I copy that clipboard capture to you here, I need to know where that info goes and who sees it, and where it will be after you and I complete this exercise. I don't want this on the open forum.

Comment 7

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hi, Steve.

If you were to post it here in about:support, it'd be publicly viewable information.

If there's sensitive information in that report that you'd rather not share, you could also email it to me directly at [e-mail]. I and perhaps other Mozilla employees would examine it, but we would not post it publicly without your consent.

Comment 8

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Steve emailed me his about:support. Thanks, Steve!

What I suspect, Steve, is that you have a corrupted preferences file. Since Firefox 57, patches have landed which have made our preferences infrastructure much more strict on the kind of inputs it will accept, and I suspect either an add-on or some third-party software has put things into your preferences file that the new infrastructure isn't accepting correctly.

To help us verify this, it'd be helpful if you could send me your preferences file for us to run some diagnostics on. Here's how you can do this:

1. Go to about:profiles
2. In the list of profiles that's presented, find the one that says "This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted."
3. In the "Root Directory" row for that Profile, click the button to open the folder
4. In the folder that opens, find the prefs.js file, and email it to me (feel free to open it in a text editor and inspect it first if you want to be more clear about what you're sending).

I realize that's a lot to ask, and you might want to just find a solution and get moving, but the above few steps would really help us understand what's going wrong.

If, however, you just want to just get moving, the simplest thing you could probably do is a Firefox Refresh, which gives you a fresh preferences file. It keeps your bookmarks, history and logins, but also removes all of your add-ons and customizations. You can then re-install the add-ons to get your Firefox back in shape.

If that's something you'd like to do, you can follow the directions here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings

Note that refreshing is non-destructive - your old "profile" (containing your old preferences, add-ons, etc) is still available on your disk, in the event that you need to recover it.

Comment 9

[Steve Kinney]

Hi Mike,

As much as I would like to continue this process for the good of the order, it has been a series of panics and protracted circumstances that you have advised leaves me extremely vulnerable. I want to exercise the "Firefox Refresh" option. I have only two add-ons -- OpenH264 Video Codec 1.7.1 installed by provided by Cisco and automatically install by Mozilla, and Widevine Content Decryption 1.4.8 provided by Google. I disabled Shockwave Flash a very long time ago, so it's not active. I only have two plug-ins -- Ghostery and Recap (a program for RECAP court docket/online public access.

Once I have done this refresh, should I then update to 63.0 or whatever the current version is (maybe you could give me the link for the latest)? I will follow your instructions and hope for the best. Just to reiterate a previous fact, the version I have installed now is NOT the last one I had before this 63.0 debacle occurred. I was up to date to the immediate prior version -- whatever that was -- and simply reisntalled the only dmg I had available because it was nigh impossible to find out quickly which one to use when I realized there was a problem, and wanted to get to a functioning browser ASAP. I had already wasted many hours trying to figure out what was wrong.

Please let me know what my executions should be once I have refreshed, to get to the version that lets me relax.

Thanks,
Steve

Comment 10

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

(In reply to Steve Kinney from comment #9)

Hi Steve,

Once you perform a refresh, you should be fine to upgrade to the latest version of Firefox (currently 63.0 - you can download it here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/download/thanks/ if it doesn't update itself automatically).

Assuming this is all in order, I'm going to close this bug out as INCOMPLETE, since we didn't get anything actionable that we could fix within the browser.