1620395 - Deprecate Telemetry GeckoView Snapshot support in Firefox 76

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(GeckoView :: General, task, P1)

Description

[Kris Wright :KrisWright]

The thread TelemetryGVIO [1] uses the NS_NewNamedThread method, so it might be possible to move it to the background thread pool.

In an effort to reduce the number of ad-hoc threads in the browser, we want to convert instances of NS_NewNamedThread to use the background thread pool [2] wherever possible. If your thread may block, you can also include the NS_DISPATCH_EVENT_MAY_BLOCK flag.

[1] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/c79c0d65a183d9d38676855f455a5c6a7f7dadd3/toolkit/components/telemetry/geckoview/TelemetryGeckoViewPersistence.cpp#522
[2] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/91f6c02fcf4c16f78fdc4417f61f192688294066/xpcom/threads/nsThreadUtils.h#1730-1757

Comment 1

[Chris H-C :chutten]

This is in the older part of our geckoview support layer. Alessio, do you know if we have current/new products relying on this mechanism? I know Fenix isn't.

Comment 2

[Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter]]

(In reply to Chris H-C :chutten from comment #1)

This is in the older part of our geckoview support layer. Alessio, do you know if we have current/new products relying on this mechanism? I know Fenix isn't.

No, I don't think we currently have any product using that.

Eugin, are you aware of any modern Mozilla product using GeckoView other than Fenix, Focus, Firefox Reality?

Comment 3

[Eugen Sawin [:esawin]]

(In reply to Alessio Placitelli [:Dexter] from comment #2)

(In reply to Chris H-C :chutten from comment #1)

This is in the older part of our geckoview support layer. Alessio, do you know if we have current/new products relying on this mechanism? I know Fenix isn't.

No, I don't think we currently have any product using that.

Eugin, are you aware of any modern Mozilla product using GeckoView other than Fenix, Focus, Firefox Reality?

The only Mozilla product using the snapshot API is Focus.
We can deprecate the API in GV 76, which would remove it in GV 79, at which point we could also remove the Gecko implementation.

Would that be an acceptable time frame for this issue?

Comment 4

[Chris H-C :chutten]

Works for me. Does it work for you, :KrisWright?

Comment 5

[Kris Wright :KrisWright]

(In reply to Chris H-C :chutten from comment #4)

Works for me. Does it work for you, :KrisWright?

That sounds great!

Comment 6

[Chris H-C :chutten]

Alrighty, retitling to be about the deprecation.

Eugen, what does "deprecate" mean to you? NS_WARNING? Notices in the documentation? Or is there a specific annotation at a higher level of Focus that we should be looking into as well?

Comment 7

[Eugen Sawin [:esawin]]

(In reply to Chris H-C :chutten from comment #6)

Alrighty, retitling to be about the deprecation.

Eugen, what does "deprecate" mean to you? NS_WARNING? Notices in the documentation? Or is there a specific annotation at a higher level of Focus that we should be looking into as well?

GV API deprecation works by annotating the API docs and then finally removing the API down the road. We aim at keeping deprecated APIs for 3 versions to allow for a complete train cycle.

Before proceeding, I need to make sure this change is aligned with our priorities for Focus. With that issue cleared, I can land the deprecation annotations and docs and will file a new bug targeting at GV 79 to remove the API and Gecko implementation (depending on the complexity, we can split that into two parts to be assigned to the different teams accordingly).

Comment 8

[Eugen Sawin [:esawin]]

Attachment: Bug 1620395 - [1.0] Depreate GeckoView Snapshot Telemetry API.

Comment 9

[Eugen Sawin [:esawin]]

Attachment: Bug 1620395 - [1.0] Deprecate GeckoView Snapshot Telemetry API.

Comment 10

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/ead0580541ad
[1.0] Deprecate GeckoView Snapshot Telemetry API. r=geckoview-reviewers,snorp,agi

Comment 11

[Daniel Varga [:dvarga]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/ead0580541ad