1554820 - After closing new tab showing Firefox Home content, that content will display instead of website content in previous tab

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1523946

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[u639779]

Attachment: screenshots_new_tab_content_bug.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:67.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/67.0

Steps to reproduce:

In Windows 10 tablet mode (unable to reproduce when in desktop mode):

1. Have a tab open displaying any website.
2. Open a new tab that displays the Firefox Home content.
3. Tab the "X" button to close that new tab.

Actual results:

Focus returns to the previous tab and the correct URL, page title, favicon, etc. display in the browser -- but instead of the website's contents, the Firefox Home content displays instead.

In case it's relevant, I noticed that the original tab remained active after the new tab was opened (i.e. they were both appearing as the active tab). See attached screenshot for examples of the before and after.

Expected results:

The original tab should have lost focus when the new tab was opened. When the new tab was closed, the original tab should display the website's content and not the Firefox Home content.

Comment 1

[Peter Magyari (Desktop QA)]

Hi Tim,

I wasn't able to reproduce this issue on a Microsoft Surface Pro with Windows 10 in tablet mode using Firefox Release 67.0 (2019-05-16) or Firefox Nightly 69.0a1 (2019-05-30).

Please check if the issue occurs to you in Safe Mode. Here is a link that can help you with that:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode

If the issue does still occur, please test it using a new profile, you can find the steps to do that below:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=Managing-profiles#w_starting-the-profile-manager

Thank you for reporting!

Comment 2

[u639779]

Hi Peter,

I am still able to reproduce this, both in and out of safe mode -- but get this: only when my surface typecover is detached!

Normally, when I'm reading stuff in my Pocket list, etc. for long periods, I like to remove the typecover because I find it's more comfortable to hold the Surface in portrait mode. That is how I first noticed this weird issue with the new tabs.

When I retested this following your comments, I still had the typecover attached, though it was folded behind the Surface. This caused Windows 10 to enter Tablet Mode, as well as disable the keyboard & trackpad on the typecover. Because Windows 10 entered tablet mode, Firefox also switched to the Touch density.

However, I noticed right away that the new tabs behaved correctly -- i.e. when I opened a new tab, the old tab did not remain active/highlighted as in my initial screenshot. I could open and close the new tab as many times as I wanted and I was never able to reproduce the issue. Basically, it behaved just like it does for me when my Surface is in Desktop Mode.

As soon as I detached the typecover, though, I was able to reproduce the issue again. (I should note, though, that it doesn't happen all the time -- sometimes I can close a new tab and the original tab displays correctly. But it is frequent enough to be annoying.)

I guess it all boils down to how Firefox reacts when there's no typecover attached (or more generally, when there's a touch screen but no keyboard/trackpad), which unfortunately is a very Surface-specific edge case. I really can't think of other Windows 2-in-1 devices that would run into this specific issue where this could be further tested. I'm crossing my fingers, though, that maybe this wouldn't too onerous to fix. :)

Best,
-Tim

Comment 3

[Peter Magyari (Desktop QA)]

Hi Tim,

Thank you for taking the time to investigate on this, I've managed to reproduce the issue you've encountered with the type-cover detached.
I will add a component in order to involve the development team in reviewing this issue.

Thanks again!