1542863 - Make sure there’s a good fallback experience when the load times out (& have it timeout)

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

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

Description

[Gavin Suntop [:gvn] (they/them)]

Design & implement an experience for when feed and/or template load requests time out.

Also, need to determine what an acceptable timeout is exactly.

Comment 1

[Gavin Suntop [:gvn] (they/them)]

Assigning to Wolasi for UX.

Comment 2

[Wolasi :wolasi]

:gvn

• The timeout only affects Top Sites, Pocket Stories, and Highlights right? Search will be displayed regardless right?
• Is it in scope to automatically kick of another request for data after the timeout? Or is the expectation a manual reload by the user?

Comment 3

[Gavin Suntop [:gvn] (they/them)]

I believe search always shows up, yes.

Not in scope to kick off another request AFAIK. I believe best approach would be to show some error messaging.

Comment 4

[Jessilyn Davis]

Goal for this bug: Wolasi to have UX by 4/12 - Gavin be able to implement by 4/19. Thanks!

Comment 5

[Wolasi :wolasi]

Can we show a refresh button with the message?

Comment 6

[Gavin Suntop [:gvn] (they/them)]

Yes, but bear in mind that there are multiple potential failure scenarios:

1. Layout request fails (entire page can't render)
2. Individual feed request fails (only component(s) dependent on that feed will fail to render...I think)

Comment 7

[Gavin Suntop [:gvn] (they/them)]

Scott, do you know if a single feed failure will stop the entire layout from rendering?

Comment 8

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

One feed should not stop the rest. The layout failure though would.

I think what happens is when 1 feed fails, it's a network issue and all are likely to fail anyway, including the layout.

Comment 9

[Jessilyn Davis]

MVP for this week (68): Request has to timeout. Needs timeout threshold.

UX: render local copy by default.

Comment 10

[Gavin Suntop [:gvn] (they/them)]

Vicky, do you have a sense of what the timeout threshold should be set to?

Comment 11

[Vicky Chin [:vchin]]

Discussed with necko team and we agreed that the timeout threshold should be set to 45s.

Comment 12

[Wolasi :wolasi]

Here's the spec, it covers the following timeout scenarios

1. entire Pocket section fails to load
2. a category content feed in the Pocket section fails to load

Note spec assumes that Top Sites will always be displayed. Ping @wolasi if you have implementation questions.

Figma Spec
https://www.figma.com/file/0xZkmT86rSXbGRB4eIvrn0ts/New-Tab-Spec-for-Fx-v68?node-id=526%3A55

Comment 13

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

Non UI changes happened in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1548353 so it now times out, it just doesn't apply any ui specific to the timeout or any other fails for that matter. If a layout fails, it now uses the default layout, and if a feed fails it displays nothing for that feed. Things like topsites and search always load. Spocs would just not display a spoc.

Comment 14

[Wolasi :wolasi]

What's the latest on this?

Comment 15

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

I havn't started, and I can fit it in after Ad server work. It's scheduled for 69 and there is still time.

Comment 16

[GitHub Bugzilla PR Linker]

Attachment: Link to GitHub pull-request: https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/pull/5085

Comment 17

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

This got merged.

Comment 18

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/719da47cffec

Comment 19

[Marius Coman [:mcoman], Ecosystem QA]

I have verified this issue with the latest Firefox Nightly (69.0a1 Build ID - 20190613215335) installed, on Windows 10 x64, Arch Linux and Mac 10.14.5. Now a user-friendly message and the "Try Again" button are displayed, according to the specs, if the entire Pocket section or a category content feed from a sections fails to load.