1533089 - HTTP Referer not set when clicking articles

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect, P1)

Description

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

pdahiya noticed "while working on <jsm> changes to support context menu options, I realise we need site_referrer thats in default activity stream coming from prefs https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/search?q=stories_referrer"

This means discovery stream isn't attributing link clicks to pocket where topstories would use the value set in the pref browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.section.topstories.options

… "stories_referrer":"https://getpocket.com/recommendations" …

Comment 1

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

Probably pretty straightforward fix, please request uplift once you land a patch.

Comment 2

[GitHub Bugzilla PR Linker]

Attachment: Link to GitHub pull-request: https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/pull/4831

Comment 3

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Attachment: Bug 1533089 - HTTP Referer not set when clicking articles

Comment 4

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Attachment: QA steps result

QA steps:

1. open up Browser Console (Tools -> Web Developer -> Browser Console)
2. make sure [Requests] is selected
3. open up new tab page (with discovery stream enabled)
4. click on an article
5. find the first request for the article (should match the url on the link)
6. expand request with default Headers tab selected
7. make sure "Referer" is set in the Request headers section (under Response headers; can filter for "refer")

step 7 should look like attached. (Alternatively, if you know of easier ways to inspect request headers, do that! :))

Comment 5

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Comment on attachment 9048965 [details]
Bug 1533089 - HTTP Referer not set when clicking articles

Beta/Release Uplift Approval Request

• Feature/Bug causing the regression: Bug 1512725
• User impact if declined: 66 experiment users' visits to articles don't get attributed to coming from pocket, so publishers might think they're getting less pocket recommendation traffic and be less inclined to have relationships with mozilla
• Is this code covered by automated tests?: No
• Has the fix been verified in Nightly?: No
• Needs manual test from QE?: Yes
• If yes, steps to reproduce: comment 4
• List of other uplifts needed: None
• Risk to taking this patch: Medium
• Why is the change risky/not risky? (and alternatives if risky): Not a trivial fix as it changes how clicking links work, which is a core feature, but the implementation mostly reuses link-clicking-with-referrer functionality that has been in use in firefox for many releases now
• String changes made/needed: none

Comment 6

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Uplift note: unlike other uplifts that needed separate phabricator patches specially for mozilla-beta, this one for mozilla-central (which hasn't landed yet as of this comment) applies cleanly to mozilla-beta so the mozilla-central commit can be used directly

Comment 7

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/61f7f4614016
HTTP Referer not set when clicking articles r=k88hudson

Comment 8

[GitHub Bugzilla PR Linker]

Attachment: Link to GitHub pull-request: https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/pull/4832

Comment 9

[Cristina Coroiu [:ccoroiu]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/61f7f4614016

Comment 10

[Kate Hudson :k88hudson]

Brahmini can you take a look at the QA steps for this?

Comment 11

[Brahmini Nagabandi]

(In reply to Ed Lee :Mardak from comment #4)

Created attachment 9048966 [details]
QA steps result

QA steps:

1. open up Browser Console (Tools -> Web Developer -> Browser Console)
2. make sure [Requests] is selected
3. open up new tab page (with discovery stream enabled)
4. click on an article
5. find the first request for the article (should match the url on the link)
6. expand request with default Headers tab selected
7. make sure "Referer" is set in the Request headers section (under Response headers; can filter for "refer")

step 7 should look like attached. (Alternatively, if you know of easier ways to inspect request headers, do that! :))

QA Results:

Tested on :

FF Nightly version : 67.0a1 (2019-03-07)
OS : Mac and Windows 10 Pro

[Prerequisites]:

• The browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.config pref is set to default
• Discovery Stream is also set to Enabled

Works as expected.

NOTE:

• On Mac OS, FF Nightly shows googleapis as the first request, and then the article request.
• On Windows OS - article request is the first request.

Below are attached results for both OS.

Comment 12

[Brahmini Nagabandi]

Attachment: QA Results : bug 1533089 (Mac OS).png

Comment 13

[Brahmini Nagabandi]

Attachment: QA Results : bug 1533089 (Windows OS).png

Comment 14

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

Comment on attachment 9048965 [details]
Bug 1533089 - HTTP Referer not set when clicking articles

Last minute fix for pocket/new tab issue, verified in nightly.
OK to uplift for the RC next monday.

Comment 15

[Narcis Beleuzu [:NarcisB]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/ac72aaf9c46e

Comment 16

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/a014bada4619