Closed Bug 1622863 Opened 5 years ago Closed 5 years ago

geolocation has stopped working (in Fedora's Firefox builds)

Categories

(Core :: DOM: Geolocation, defect)

Product:
Core
Component:
DOM: Geolocation
Version:
74 Branch
Platform:
Unspecified
Linux
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED MOVED

People

(Reporter: greta_watson, Unassigned)

References

(
URL
)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64; rv:74.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0

Steps to reproduce:

  1. https://www.locast.org
  2. select the button that says to allow geolocation

Actual results:

Website says I denied geolocation

Expected results:

Geolocation should have been provided to Locast.

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

Component: Untriaged → DOM: Core & HTML
Product: Firefox → Core

Thanks for reporting the issue. I couldn't reproduce it with a German IP address and Firefox 75.0b4:

Unfortunately Locast is not available in your area.Please Donate today
to help us bring locast to your area.
Component: DOM: Core & HTML → DOM: Geolocation

I tried to repro from Spain and got the location prompt, but it worked just fine... :/

Locast works only in the US. It knows enough that it will give you the not available message from outside the US without accurate geolocation. So, for you it appears to work.

A colleague from the US tested it with Firefox 74 on Windows 10 and it works for him.

When I use Google Chrome, with Fedora 30, it works fine. When I use Firefox with Fedora 30, it does not work.

Problem also occurs on https://gps-coordinates.org/what-is-my-zip-code.php. When using Google Chrome, I get latitude and longitude. When I am using Firefox, I don't.

Also, when using Firefox, if I don't select either choice (allow or deny location access), I get the message that I'm not in a location that is supported by Locast.

Does it happen from an official build like the ones from https://nightly.mozilla.org? Fedora ships with various patches. I'm with Nightly on Fedora 32 and all those URLs seem to work fine.

I got a disk for Fedora 28 KDE spin some time ago, and installed that. Then I ran the upgrade using the dnf upgrade process, going to 29. Repeated that from 29 to 30. Do "sudo dnf -y update" manually from the command line (xfce4-terminal) every couple of days.

Greta, can you please copy and paste the values of the following preferences from your Firefox's about:config page?

geo.enabled
geo.provider.network.url
geo.provider.use_gpsd (if it exists)

Is geolocation broken on all websites (including Google Maps)?

geo. enabled true
geo. provider.network.url https://www.googleapis.com/geolocation/v1/geolocate?key=%GOOGLE_LOCATION_SERVICE_API_KEY%
geo.provider.use_gpsd does not exist

I have no clue how to tell if it is broken on Google Maps. It is broken on all the websites that ask for permission to access the location.

geo. provider.network.url https://www.googleapis.com/geolocation/v1/geolocate?key=%GOOGLE_LOCATION_SERVICE_API_KEY%

Thanks. So your Firefox is using Google's Location Service ("GLS") to find your latitude and longitude. GLS requires a Google API key. Mozilla has a Google API key, but if your Firefox build is compiled by the Fedora Project itself, then Fedora is presumably filling in their own Google API key. Perhaps their API key has hit some request limit? I recommend asking on a Fedora support forum or bug tracker if other Fedora users have geolocation problems.

You can also try downloading an official Mozilla Firefox build (which will use Mozilla's Google API key) to see if the problem is still reproducible:

https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/

I downloaded the official Mozilla Firefox build. The problem did not occur. So, I guess this should be filed as a bug in Fedora's version of Firefox, and this one should be closed as not a bug in the official Mozilla Firefox build.

Thank-you for all your support. For the time being, I will use the official Mozilla Firefox build.

(In reply to Greta from comment #14)

I downloaded the official Mozilla Firefox build. The problem did not occur. So, I guess this should be filed as a bug in Fedora's version of Firefox, and this one should be closed as not a bug in the official Mozilla Firefox build.

Thanks for testing! If you file a Fedora bug report or get an answer in a Fedora forum, can you please share in this bug? I am curious to know what is happening and how Mozilla might be able to help prevent this problem in the future.

I will close this bug as "MOVED", meaning the bug has been delegated to a different organization.

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 5 years ago
Resolution: --- → MOVED
OS: Unspecified → Linux
Summary: geolocation has stopped working → geolocation has stopped working (in Fedora's Firefox builds)

The Mozilla Bugzilla bug I filed against Fedora Firefox is: 1814456. I will update here if/when I get more information.

We used to set quota by you guys: see bug 1377987. Francois did that for us, maybe he's could help. We use the project id firefox-for-fedora and we have the same google api key for the safe browsing and location. Maybe that could be a problem too.

Flags: needinfo?(francois)

(In reply to Jan Horak [:jhorak] from comment #18)

We used to set quota by you guys: see bug 1377987. Francois did that for us, maybe he's could help. We use the project id firefox-for-fedora and we have the same google api key for the safe browsing and location. Maybe that could be a problem too.

I think Francois is no longer working at MoCo (though if he could help it'd be great)... Maybe Chutten knows who the right contact for this kind of stuff would be otherwise?

Flags: needinfo?(chutten)

Lonnen has been working on geoloc.

URL: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug....
Flags: needinfo?(francois) → needinfo?(chris.lonnen)

Sadly I don't, but :Sylvestre is the contact my contact suggested, so... : D

Flags: needinfo?(chutten)

Ah ah, I used to be in charge of this but Lonnen took the lead at some point :)

In the reorg this moved. /ccing WillKG and JWhitlock

Flags: needinfo?(willkg)
Flags: needinfo?(jwhitlock)
Flags: needinfo?(chris.lonnen)

I don't have any contacts at Google, or access to the Google API keys. It's not clear to me what was done on bug 1377987. I'll ask around to see if there is a new person in charge of this.

Flags: needinfo?(willkg)
See Also: → 1610306, 1377987

(In reply to Jan Horak [:jhorak] from comment #18)

We used to set quota by you guys: see bug 1377987. Francois did that for us, maybe he's could help. We use the project id firefox-for-fedora and we have the same google api key for the safe browsing and location.

That quota extension was specific to the Safe Browsing API. I'm not aware of Google granting quota extensions free-of-charge for the Geolocation API.

We reached out to Google on behalf of another distro last week, but we don't have an answer yet. I agree with :francois, I haven't heard of instances of Google granting free quota extensions for the Geolocation API, and in general has moved to lower quotas and charge earlier for APIs.

Flags: needinfo?(jwhitlock) → needinfo?(mozilla)

The best I can get from Google is to open an issue at:

https://enterprise.google.com/supportcenter/managecases

And they can investigate. There isn't anything we can do on our end.

Flags: needinfo?(mozilla)
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