Closed Bug 1593855 Opened 6 years ago Closed 6 years ago

Remember volume level in private-browsing

Categories

(Core :: Audio/Video, defect)

Product:
Core
Component:
Audio/Video
Version:
70 Branch
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: mvocom, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:70.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/70.0

Steps to reproduce:

Play a YouTube video in a private window.
Lower the volume in YouTube's player.
Open another YouTube video in a new tab.

(YouTube is just an example. It's relevant to any site playing videos).

Actual results:

The volume level is set to default.

Expected results:

Remember the volume level in private-browsing.

Expected results:

Remember the volume level in private-browsing for the current session.

Bugbug thinks this bug should belong to this component, but please revert this change in case of error.

Component: Untriaged → Private Browsing

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

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Flags: needinfo?(lcrouch)

P3 usability issue; not a privacy vulnerability.

Flags: needinfo?(lcrouch)
Priority: -- → P3

Drew,

I usually use Private Browsing and this is yet another (very) annoying behavior.
Can you please have a look?

Thank you.

Flags: needinfo?(adw)

Sorry Yaron, I'm happy to fix bugs outside my usual area, the urlbar, but I don't have time right now, and I'd need to look into where to even start because I don't have any knowledge of how volume level works.

Flags: needinfo?(adw)

Thank you Drew. I appreciate it.

Johann,

Do you think the volume level should not be remembered for the current session?
Login details entered in one tab are remembered in new tabs. The volume level is less "private" IMO and having to re-august the volume on every new tab is extremely inconvenient.

Thank you.

Flags: needinfo?(jhofmann)

Hey, I don't think there's anything we can do here, really.

  • I can't reproduce this.
  • Maybe I'm misremembering but I don't believe Firefox is actually storing volume level, e.g. if I try the same thing with https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/video/basics/devstories.webm then the volume is not persisted across tabs. So this is probably a Youtube feature.
  • Private Windows will not clear data per-tab, all data is kept in memory until the last private window closes, so it seems unlikely that this comes from private browsing.

Please re-open if this is inaccurate.

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago
Flags: needinfo?(jhofmann)
Resolution: --- → INVALID

Hello Johann,

Thank you for looking into it.

https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/video/basics/devstories.webm is a rare and interesting case.
On every other site I've tested (quite many) - the volume level is preserved in non-private windows and not preserved in private windows.
So it's certainly not a unique YouTube feature.

Can you please re-open this issue? - Someone might further investigate it.

I mean, sure, but it would be great if you could provide another example of this, ideally on a page that embeds a native video element and not a custom player.

Also, as I mentioned, private browsing mode doesn't really control this so I'm out of my depth. Moving to Audio/Video...

Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Component: Private Browsing → Audio/Video
Ever confirmed: true
Product: Firefox → Core
Resolution: INVALID → ---
Priority: P3 → --

(In reply to Johann Hofmann [:johannh] from comment #11)

I mean, sure, but it would be great if you could provide another example of this

Here are some examples:
https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/53017258/coronavirus-in-tanzania-has-covid-19-disappeared
https://news.sky.com/video/george-floyd-americas-tipping-point-12005059
https://edition.cnn.com/videos

Thanks again.

Gijs,
Can you please think of someone who might be willing to take it on?

Thank you.

Flags: needinfo?(gijskruitbosch+bugs)

(In reply to Yaron from comment #12)

(In reply to Johann Hofmann [:johannh] from comment #11)

I mean, sure, but it would be great if you could provide another example of this

Here are some examples:
https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/53017258/coronavirus-in-tanzania-has-covid-19-disappeared

This doesn't persist volume in normal mode either.

https://news.sky.com/video/george-floyd-americas-tipping-point-12005059

Nor this.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos

Nor this.

(In reply to Yaron from comment #0)

Play a YouTube video in a private window.
Lower the volume in YouTube's player.
Open another YouTube video in a new tab.

I can't reproduce this - the volume is persisted in both private and normal mode. It's stored in local storage. Perhaps you've set prefs blocking localstorage use in private browsing or something? I can reproduce that if you close all private windows and then reopen a private window, the volume has changed - because the local storage that youtube put that information in has been cleared, so the data is gone and youtube can't know what your volume preference is.

Can you reproduce the youtube issue in a clean profile? Can you perhaps do a screen recording using a clean profile, to see what we might be missing?

Flags: needinfo?(gijskruitbosch+bugs) → needinfo?(mvocom)

(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #14)

https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/53017258/coronavirus-in-tanzania-has-covid-19-disappeared

This doesn't persist volume in normal mode either.

https://news.sky.com/video/george-floyd-americas-tipping-point-12005059

Nor this.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos

Nor this.

You are correct. My test was negligent and I'm sorry about that.

(In reply to Yaron from comment #0)

Play a YouTube video in a private window.
Lower the volume in YouTube's player.
Open another YouTube video in a new tab.

I can't reproduce this - the volume is persisted in both private and normal mode.

I've tested it again with a new profile and the volume is persisted in normal mode but NOT in private windows.

Here are the steps in the attached video:
Open a private window.
Search Firefox on YouTube.
Middle click to open a video.
Activate that page and lower the volume.
Open another video in a new tab.

Result:
The volume in the second video is reset to default.

(I've also tested again some other sites and got the same result: the volume is persisted in normal mode but NOT in private windows).

It seems that Johann Hofmann was right: the volume level persistence is not set by Firefox.
So allow me to change the "bug" to a "request": add an option to preserve the last user-set volume level for a domain both in normal mode and in private windows.
What do you think?

Thank you very much. I do appreciate it,

Flags: needinfo?(mvocom)

The video file is over 10MB.
https://gofile.io/d/4Z3mbl

(In reply to Yaron from comment #16)

The video file is over 10MB.
https://gofile.io/d/4Z3mbl

I can't reproduce, following the same steps. But my youtube looks slightly different, and I also notice that in your case, youtube autoplays? It doesn't do that for me.

All in all, this seems like it's likely a site issue, not something Firefox can do anything about.

Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago → 6 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID

(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #17)

But my youtube looks slightly different, and I also notice that in your case, youtube autoplays? It doesn't do that for me.

No, it doesn't auto-play. :)

All in all, this seems like it's likely a site issue, not something Firefox can do anything about.

Thanks again for testing it. Much appreciated.

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