Closed Bug 1544891 Opened 6 years ago Closed 6 years ago

Sync Doesn't Automatically Start on Firefox Nightly Launch

Categories

(Firefox :: Sync, defect, P3)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Sync
Version:
68 Branch
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: moore.bryan, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Launch Nightly.

Actual results:

When I launch Nightly, I am not signed into Sync and must manually go to settings, at which point Sync begins.

Expected results:

Sync should start when Nightly is launched.

Component: Untriaged → Sync

Additionally, this issue seems to only affect my Windows OS and is not present on Linux (Solus OS 4).

Thanks for reporting. What does "not signed into Sync" mean? How do you know you are not signed in? When you go to settings, do you need to take any other action there?

Note that Sync normally doesn't start until at least 10 seconds after starting up, and possibly even longer if a large session is being restored - could that be what you are seeing?

Flags: needinfo?(moore.bryan)

By "not signed into Sync," I'm referring to sync not being "on" even after having Firefox up-and-running for a while; e.g., this morning, Firefox has been loaded for over 30 minutes, but when I click the "sergeant bars," I'm asked to "Sign in to Sync." That happens every time I launch Firefox. Screenshot: https://web.tresorit.com/l#ukWbfh1khk2ZoLSNByO12w

Clicking the "Sign in to Sync" option, takes me to the "Settings" page, at which time Sync automatically begins.

Flags: needinfo?(moore.bryan)

Thanks for getting back - that's very strange. Could you please try restarting Firefox and immediately select that "sergeant bars" menu, then "Web Developer" then "Browser Console" - a new window should open. Then hit that "Sign in to Sync" option. Then, switch back to the "Browser Console" window and paste anything that appears there?

Also, please enter "about:sync-log" into your address bar, and if there are any recent error files shown, upload them to this bug?

Thanks!

You're telling me...

Nothing new pops up in the console and there's no error log file.

The priority flag is not set for this bug.
:markh, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Flags: needinfo?(markh)

Sorry for the delay - would it be possible to open about:config and let me know if the services.sync.username preference has a value?

Flags: needinfo?(markh) → needinfo?(moore.bryan)
Priority: -- → P3

No worries...

On a fresh start, Sync is not automatically started and there is no services.sync.username preference; in fact, even after getting Sync to start, that preference doesn't exist: https://web.tresorit.com/l#zTytPn-H7uddyWH_cffTkg

Flags: needinfo?(moore.bryan)

(In reply to moore.bryan from comment #8)

No worries...

On a fresh start, Sync is not automatically started and there is no services.sync.username preference; in fact, even after getting Sync to start, that preference doesn't exist: https://web.tresorit.com/l#zTytPn-H7uddyWH_cffTkg

Huh. It's expected it will not be recreated after sync starts as it is only written at signin time - but I wonder how it got reset, or what caused it to not get written in the first place.

Regardless, can you please try creating it as a "string" pref, and give it any value at all - it should be set to the email address of your account, so you might as well set it to that - but the actual value doesn't matter. After that, try restarting and see if the problem goes away.

Flags: needinfo?(moore.bryan)

Welp, :markh, manually creating the pref seems to have done it.

I created the <services.sync.username> "string" pref with my email, restarted Nightly, and boom I'm automatically signed into Sync.

Wonder what was going on there...

Flags: needinfo?(moore.bryan)

Interestingly, for an unrelated issue, I had to force-shutdown my laptop a few minutes ago while Nightly was running and when I restarted and fired up Nightly, it treated me as though it was my first time running it and the pref was deleted. #Strange

(In reply to moore.bryan from comment #11)

Interestingly, for an unrelated issue, I had to force-shutdown my laptop a few minutes ago while Nightly was running and when I restarted and fired up Nightly, it treated me as though it was my first time running it and the pref was deleted. #Strange

That probably means your prefs.js file was either deleted or became corrupt. This isn't a known problem with preferences so I'm really not sure what could be causing this - but if it continues to happen we should dig a bit deeper into it (ie, try and determine whether the .js file is missing or corrupt). Anti-virus software is always a candidate for this kind of bizarreness.

I'm not sure there's much I can do here, so I'll probably close this soon, but feel free to keep adding any relevant comments.

Thanks all your assistance, :markh; it's much appreciated.

I'll keep checking back for any new information and should the issue pop-up again, I'll post back.

Again, thank you.

*for

You're welcome!

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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