1689071 - Containers don't work when FF is started with -private and a new window is opened

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1320757

(Firefox :: Extension Compatibility, defect)

Description

[Walter K.]

Attachment: Containers don't work when FF is started with -private command line parameter

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:85.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/85.0

Steps to reproduce:

• install Multi-Account Containers Add-on and put its icon on toolbar
• start FF with -private command line parameter. It'll start in PB mode.
• open new window via Ctrl-N

Windows 10, FF 85

Actual results:

• Multi-Account Containers' icon is available on the toolbar but doesn't work
• clicking on the icon (or Ctrl+.) only draws a line underneath but no containers drop-down

Expected results:

• clicking on the icon (or Ctrl+.) only should display working containers drop-down menu and containers should work

Comment 1

[Raluca Popovici, Desktop QA]

I was able to reproduce this bug on my machine win 10x64 on Fx 85, 86.0b4 and Nightly 87.0a1.

Comment 2

[Rob Wu [:robwu]]

-private enables permanent-private browsing mode. This is a duplicate of bug 1320757

Comment 3

[Walter K.]

(In reply to Rob Wu [:robwu] from comment #2)

-private enables permanent-private browsing mode. This is a duplicate of bug 1320757

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1320757 ***

FF doesn't seem to be in the permanent private browsing mode. The second window opened via Ctrl+N is not in the private mode, and its non-private extensions are enabled with history being recorded. That's why Containers extension is enabled too.

It seems that -private applies to the initial window only. It's like the opposite of starting FF normally and then doing Ctrl+Shift+P to get a Private window up.

Comment 4

[Rob Wu [:robwu]]

When Firefox is in permanent-private browsing mode, then it doesn't have the private appearance any more. The "permanent private browsing mode" appears to not be as persistent as the option controlled via "Never remember history" / browser.privatebrowsing.autostart=true, as I can indeed see that Ctrl-N opens a non-private window. Ctrl-Shift-P opens a normal-looking window that in fact is a private browsing window.

If you really want to have one private window without entering permanent private browsing mode, use -private-window instead of -private.