1668484 - Application provided engines are potentially unhidden when the region changes

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1675624

(Firefox :: Search, defect, P3)

Description

[Gleb]

Attachment: amazon-search.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:80.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/80.0

Steps to reproduce:

Firefox on Windows 10 was updated to version 81. Amazon search was added to the list of my search engines in Firefox. I removed Amazon search for several times already.

Actual results:

Amazon search appears again.

Expected results:

I don't want Amazon to appear in my search engines list after I removed it.

Comment 1

[Gleb]

The user agent string is from a different machine. The version with defect is this one:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Please can you attach a copy of your troubleshooting information?

To do that, go to the three-bar menu -> Help -> Troubleshooting Information. Click the "Copy text to clipboard button", then select add an attachment just above the first comment and paste it into there.

Comment 3

[Gleb]

Attachment: Troubleshooting information

Comment 4

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Thank you for the support information.

Your profile folder contains a user.js file, which includes preferences that were not created by Firefox.

Does your user.js contain anything to do with browser.search.region?

browser.search.region: CA

This is currently what Firefox thinks is your region - which fits in with "Amazon.ca" being in the list, however, in the list of extensions I see:

Name: Amazon.co.uk
Type: extension
Version: 1.3
Enabled: true
ID: [e-mail]

I think this implies that Firefox has thought that you were in the GB (Great Britain) region previously and was previously serving you amazon.co.uk (which you'd have removed). Could this be the case? If so, that could explain the re-appearance.

Comment 5

[Gleb]

I do have user.js with browser.search.region:

user_pref("browser.search.region", "US");

Comment 6

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to gleb from comment #5)

I do have user.js with browser.search.region:

user_pref("browser.search.region", "US");

Could you try removing that line, and see what happens with the next update (due around the 20th)?

I don't think it is the user.js affecting you, as it should only affect the default value. I also couldn't reproduce locally. However, there could be something strange going on, so let's try it and see.

Comment 7

[Gleb]

So, I removed that line from user.js. I also removed Amazon search again. It believe it was done on Friday. And today I have Amazon.ca again AND ebay!

I already removed eBay previously as well. They are enabled as one click searches all the time! It breaks how search bar and autocomplete looks.

Comment 8

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to gleb from comment #7)

So, I removed that line from user.js. I also removed Amazon search again. It believe it was done on Friday. And today I have Amazon.ca again AND ebay!

I already removed eBay previously as well. They are enabled as one click searches all the time! It breaks how search bar and autocomplete looks.

Are you by any chance potentially moving between locations? or different networks?

Could you try this:

• In the address bar, enter about:config.
• Acknowledge the warning that comes up.
• In the search box enter region.
• Look for the browser.region.* and browser.search.* preferences and take a screenshot of those and attach that here.

If you do happen to be switching between networks, then also try restarting Firefox when on the other network, and take another screenshot.

Comment 9

[Gleb]

Attachment: browser.search.png

I don't move between locations or between networks. This is a desktop PC that is not moved anywhere. But there might be situations where the default route is switched if the main route is not working for some reason, we are notified if this happens and I don't recall anything like that in the past few weeks.

I must also add this:

• as some countries has censorship laws and block certain websites, people or organizations need to find ways to bypass these situation.
• one of the soltuions is to create VPN connection (on the router) and route trafic to those networks but only for blocked resources. I don't have any technical details about how it is done in the network where this desktop PC is located, but it may explain why I am in Canada (and I am not in Canada or in America at all).

Comment 10

[Gleb]

Attachment: browser.region.png

Comment 11

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Can you keep an eye on those region preferences (browser.search.region, and browser.region.*) over the next couple of weeks and see if they change again?

The main one, browser.search.region should only change at a minimum of 14 days after it detects a consistent region change.

If they're not changing but Amazon/eBay reappear, then the issue might be something else.

Comment 12

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Hi gleb, just wondering if you've had any results here?

Comment 13

[Gleb]

Hi! Sorry for the delay. I was checkeing the browser.search.region and it did not change since the last time I replied here - still "CA". New searches did not appear anymore.

Comment 14

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Thank you for confirming. I suspect overall the issue here is most likely to be that the region change caused the engine list to change and as a result that was seen as a fresh engine which then got displayed.

I'm tentatively marking a dependency on our search alias meta bug (which is doing more than just that), as I think we may want to consider this case when we rework the preferences.

Comment 15

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Bug 1675624 has added a fix for this. If you've not seen the search engines previously, then you'll still get them displayed, but if region keeps changing then Firefox will remember the settings.