Please disable unsolicited Firefox profile cleanup dialog
Categories
(Firefox :: Migration, enhancement)
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People
(Reporter: ishikawa, Unassigned)
Details
Hi,
Is there a way to suppress the automatic profile clean up at atll in Firefox?
There may be a config option to do that. If so, I would like to see it in disable position in the release build.
Background:
Recently within the last 30 days if I recall correctly, on one of the Windows 10 64-bit machine (running windows PRO 64bit), after automatic Firefox upgrade, somehow
a dialog popped up to offer to clean up my profile.
At the time, I was trying to tweak certain server setup parameters, and I needed to know how very quickly.
Before I notice it, when I switch to firefox, it was ready to start upgrading. So I let it do that. But as soon as it finished uploading (up until then I was patient), this
unsolicited "Profile cleanup dialog" was proposed.
Well, I was not that patient by then (because I needed to fix the broken server setup quickly), without thinking too much, I hit OK to proceed to the dialog. (It was a big mistake since I lost the addon configuration parameters, etc. later. But after all I was offered the cleanup, and it was me who pushed OK more or less without much thinking at the moment...)
Because of the intrusive nature of the prompt, it is unwelcome when someone is really not in a mood to be interrupted, I propose that this automatic unsolicited dialog be disabled forever in the release build.
I believe, if someone is worried about performance, once he/she searches for tips by web search, the profile cleanup will be among the first dozen tips.
So I don't believe we have to offer this unsolicited profile clean up dialog at all.
Users can find this function without the unsolicited dialog.
Just my idea. I wonder if there are agreements from other users.
TIA
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Updated•6 years ago
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Comment 1•6 years ago
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Taking this out altogether is an extreme reaction. I didn't find the logic with a quick search but I believe this prompt is only supposed to be shown if you use a very old profile, so from the description above, it sounds like perhaps there is a bug causing the prompt to be shown too eagerly. Matt, what is the rule supposed to be about when to show that prompt?
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Comment 2•6 years ago
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(In reply to Andrew Swan [:aswan] from comment #1)
Taking this out altogether is an extreme reaction. I didn't find the logic with a quick search but I believe this prompt is only supposed to be shown if you use a very old profile, so from the description above, it sounds like perhaps there is a bug causing the prompt to be shown too eagerly. Matt, what is the rule supposed to be about when to show that prompt?
I have no idea what the definition of "old": I use firefox daily with occasional tweaking here and there.
So if the prompt that was shown after an automatic update was not intentional (there could be a timer or something?),
then I think there was some combination events that trigger the display of the prompt accidentally.
TIA
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Comment 3•6 years ago
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There are 2 related messages. One is about usage, the other is about uninstalling Firefox. Did your steps at any point run the uninstaller? That might have triggered the second type. For ther former, the code is tripped from:
which has an about:config pref to disable it if you're doing something repititive that's likely to trip it, and otherwise uses a threshold of 60 days, calculated from appinfo's replacedLockTime. Does that help? Was the lock time wrong because of what you were doing, maybe?
Because I actually think that as-is the warning threshold (and having it in the first place) is pretty reasonable. When people come back to Firefox after a significant period of time has passed, blowing away some cruft is likely to do their initial experience some good - especially if they originally switched to another browser because they had problems, and are now switching back. Waiting for the user to spend time to figure out the cause of the problems isn't a good strategy for retention, they're likely to be frustrated and give up, and the data is unlikely to be super important if the browser wasn't opened for 2 months (plus, we don't actually remove data, we create a backup on your desktop).
Do you still think something needs to change here, and if so, what?
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Comment 4•6 years ago
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(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #3)
There are 2 related messages. One is about usage, the other is about uninstalling Firefox. Did your steps at any point run the uninstaller? That might have triggered the second type. For ther former, the code is tripped from:
which has an about:config pref to disable it if you're doing something repititive that's likely to trip it, and otherwise uses a threshold of 60 days, calculated from appinfo's
replacedLockTime. Does that help? Was the lock time wrong because of what you were doing, maybe?Because I actually think that as-is the warning threshold (and having it in the first place) is pretty reasonable. When people come back to Firefox after a significant period of time has passed, blowing away some cruft is likely to do their initial experience some good - especially if they originally switched to another browser because they had problems, and are now switching back. Waiting for the user to spend time to figure out the cause of the problems isn't a good strategy for retention, they're likely to be frustrated and give up, and the data is unlikely to be super important if the browser wasn't opened for 2 months (plus, we don't actually remove data, we create a backup on your desktop).
Do you still think something needs to change here, and if so, what?
My observation:
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I use firefox daily. So a threshold of 60 days should not trigger, right?
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I was doing a server maintenance at home (FreeNAS) and needed some info using google search very quick (It was after a power outage or something), when the firefox started auto-updating, AND then for whatever the reason
showed me the dialog to clean up my profile.
This timing was absolutely bad. I wanted to get rid of the dialog and was not careful enough not to hit OK or proceed or whatever at that instant.
I believe the code must have a timing window to miscalculate the threshold/retention period at the time of auto updating. Or, there is an extra bit of code that wants to show cleanup dialog for whatever the reason.
TIA
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Comment 5•6 years ago
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(In reply to ISHIKAWA, Chiaki from comment #4)
- I use firefox daily. So a threshold of 60 days should not trigger, right?
Matt, when you get back from PTO, any idea what might have triggered the notification in this case?
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Comment 6•5 years ago
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(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #5)
(In reply to ISHIKAWA, Chiaki from comment #4)
- I use firefox daily. So a threshold of 60 days should not trigger, right?
Matt, when you get back from PTO, any idea what might have triggered the notification in this case?
We have a long-standing bug that if you keep the browser running for more than 60 days then you will get the prompt since the calculation compares the start time to the last start time (instead of the last shutdown time). That is bug 1054947.
I agree we should fix that calculation (though doing it without affecting performance may not be trivial) but I'm not sure what else needs to be done in this bug?
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Comment 7•5 years ago
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(In reply to Matthew N. [:MattN] (PM me if requests are blocking you) from comment #6)
(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #5)
(In reply to ISHIKAWA, Chiaki from comment #4)
- I use firefox daily. So a threshold of 60 days should not trigger, right?
Matt, when you get back from PTO, any idea what might have triggered the notification in this case?
We have a long-standing bug that if you keep the browser running for more than 60 days then you will get the prompt since the calculation compares the start time to the last start time (instead of the last shutdown time). That is bug 1054947.
I agree we should fix that calculation (though doing it without affecting performance may not be trivial) but I'm not sure what else needs to be done in this bug?
I am not sure if this more than 60 days issue applies to my original issue since it hit me when I tried to upgrade FF.
But any problem that is known ought to be fixed if it is not a difficult issue, right :-)
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Comment 8•5 years ago
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As I said in the text I quoted, it may be difficult to do without regressing performance :)
Unless you are confident that it had been less than 60 days since you last restarted Firefox, I think we should dupe this to bug 1054947. What do you think?
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Comment 9•5 years ago
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Restarting FF does not clear this calculation and start afresh?
Then I agree that can be duped int bug 1054947.
TIA
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Reporter | |
Updated•5 years ago
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