1717764 - It is confusing when the master password dialogue and main window appear on different screens

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Toolkit :: Password Manager, defect, P3)

Description

[Avadhut Atre]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

My setup: This is seen on my MacBook Pro. I have setup multiple monitors.

I have set master password in my Firefox.

Actual results:

User experience: When I start Firefox, the main window used to become unresponsive. Key presses, mouse clicking didn't work.

What I found: The dialogue asking for master password was on another screen, waiting for my input. Man window unfroze after satisfying that dialogue

Expected results:

The enter password dialogue gets buried on the other screen, making it very hard to notice for the user. It took me multiple instances to get used to this fact "Oh, ok, Firefox is not hung-up.. I just forgot to enter the master password". Note that I restart my laptop only after few weeks. Few weeks are sufficient for me to forget this nuance, and I am bitten every week again by this :)

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Toolkit::Password Manager' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Sam Foster [:sfoster] (he/him)]

Can you confirm this still reproduces on Firefox Nightly? The primary password prompt on one browser window should not cause another browser window to become non-responsive.

Comment 3

[Avadhut Atre]

Not sure how to install the nightly build. Nevertheless, on trying the build I have, I noticed this works in general on single screen (only laptop) and dual screen setup too. The password prompt shows up in the top-middle of the main window near address bar.

But then I found exact steps to recreate this. This is what I do:

• Open Firefox on one screen
• Take mouse pointer to the other screen. Keep the mouse pointer on that screen till password prompt comes
• Now, the prompt window and main window are split. The main window on original screen on which I opened Firefox, the prompt on other
• At this time if I don't notice it, it get buried. And the main window becomes unresponsive

This is a pretty common scenario as the prompt comes couple seconds after Firefox starts. (For example, after I start my MacBook, it restores applications one by one, and with mouse moving around, there is a 50% probability of this bug will bite)

Comment 4

[Avadhut Atre]

Attachment: prompt-on-other-screen.png

This is how the standalone password prompt looks like on the other monitor/screen.

Comment 5

[Avadhut Atre]

Take mouse pointer to the other screen. Keep the mouse pointer on that screen till password prompt comes
FWIW, I think I also clicked on the other screen.

Comment 6

[Avadhut Atre]

The primary password prompt on one browser window should not cause another browser window to become non-responsive.

Correct. However notably, the issue I describe here involved only one browser window. I reckon if at all there are multiple windows, all remain responsive except on of them.

Comment 7

[Avadhut Atre]

Severity: -- → S3
Flags: needinfo?([e-mail])
Priority: -- → P3

Just a note that I used to end up quitting Firefox and switch to other browser before eventually I figured this out.

Comment 8

[Avadhut Atre]

After upgrade to 91.0.1esr (64-bit) the primary password window has started appearing more frequently (ream at least 2 times a day). Earlier it used to be presented only on startup.

It appears on other monitor. And Firefox itself appears to have become unresponsive.

Comment 9

[Avadhut Atre]

(In reply to Avadhut Atre from comment #8)

(ream at least 2 times a day).
(read: at least 2 times a day).

Comment 10

[john.q.miller.esq]

This issue still persists on all current versions of Firefox I have available on MacOS - Firefox and Firefox Developer 100.0b9, and Nightly 101.0a1. (I have also witnessed it occurring on Windows, but have not tested there recently.)

Worse still, I have seen instances of the Primary Password dialogue spawning below other windows, and failing to raise to foreground when the other application's windows are raised (e.g. by alt-tabbing). Effectively the dialogue is perpetually hidden, and needs to be chased by shoving other applications out of the way. (Heaven forbid it gets stuck behind the "frozen" Firefox browser window, which then potentially cannot be moved!)

My suggestion: dispense with the popup dialogue, and replace with an in-menu modal, similar to the update prompt pane. It could be presented in every open window, hidden and un-hidden at will, and removed when (or if) the password is ever entered.