1721592 - Remove spawnActorInParentProcess + WebConsoleActor.startListeners([NetworkActivity])

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(DevTools :: Console, task)

Description

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

spawnActorInParentProcess + spawnInParent are both broken as soon as we enable server side target (bug 1698891).
We keep testing this by disable the server side target pref, but it would be nice to remove this old code still using message managers.

VsCode adapter isn't using NetworkActivity, but may be some external RDP tooling are listening to network events via the console.

We should probably communicate about the new API and the upcoming breakages before removing a bunch of very old and basic APIs like network interception.
We may even sync up with WebDriver progress in order to suggest using the WebDriver API if available.

See bug 1642296 which is about removing the rest of this method and console log listening via the console actor.

Comment 1

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Within mozilla-central, WebConsoleActor.startListeners(["NetworkActivity"]) is being used by:

• legacy network event listener
• responsive actor (https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/699174544b058f13f02e7586b3c8fdbf438f084b/devtools/server/actors/emulation/responsive.js#114)

Comment 2

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

The responsive actor usage, coming from RDM network throtling feature may need to be rewritten in order to communicate with the NetworkObserver of the NetworkEventWatcher running in the parent process.
The legay listener usage should hopefully get away once we enable the MBT on all channels (bug 1625937). And may be also once we enable the watcher on all toolboxes (bug 1675763).

Comment 3

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Attachment: Bug 1721592 - [devtools] Remove WebConsoleActor.startListeners(["NetworkActivity"]) implementation.

This code is not compatible with Fission and is no longer used by DevTools.
RDP client should now use: WatcherActor.watchResources("network-event") request
and listen to WatcherActor.resource-available-form events.

Comment 4

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Attachment: Bug 1721592 - [devtools] Remove DevToolsServerConnection.spawnActorInParentProcess implementation.

This was only used by the former NetMonitorActor, which was removed in previous changeset.

Comment 5

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Unfortunately, the dependency on bug 1625937 still stands. So we can't remove all this code just yet.
But at least we have a good picture of how much code we could soon remove!

Comment 6

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Attachment: Bug 1721592 - [devtools] Remove Responsive actor's network throttling requests.

This is no longer used by DevTools. RDP client should now rely on NetworkParentActor's equivalent requests.
This actor can be retrieved via the WatcherActor.

Comment 7

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Note that we should also be able to remove the legacyMatchRequest from devtools/server/actors/network-monitor/utils/network-utils.js.

Comment 9

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Attachment: Bug 1721592 - [devtools] Always use the watcher/ResourceCommand to listen for network events.

Now that the old non-fission browser toolbox has been removed,
we no longer use the old codepath going through the web console actor.
We can now use a single codepath for network observable
and followup by removing the now unused server bits.

Comment 10

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Attachment: Bug 1721592 - [devtools] Remove old server codebase to listen to network events.

With the removal of the old non-fission browser toolbox,
we removed the last usage of this old codebase.
We used to be able to listen to network events via WebConsole's actor's startListeners method.
Nowadays we should rather use the Watcher actor's watchResources method and listen to
NETWORK_EVENT resource.
(or migrate to WebDriver Bidi which will soon allow to listen to network requests see bug 1790369)

This patch also removed all now unused block* requests from webconsole actor,

Comment 11

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Attachment: Bug 1721592 - [devtools] Remove DevToolsServerConnection.spawnActorInParentProcess.

This was only used by legacy netmonitor class.

Comment 12

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

Attachment: Bug 1721592 - [devtools] Remove network legacy listeners.

This required a small workaround in ResourceCommand in order to avoid
trying to spawn network event legacy listeners for workers.
The old legacy listener were bailing out for workers...

Comment 13

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/d4bdcc85251d
[devtools] Always use the watcher/ResourceCommand to listen for network events. r=devtools-reviewers,jdescottes
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/a1d57b3aafbd
[devtools] Remove old server codebase to listen to network events. r=devtools-reviewers,devtools-backward-compat-reviewers,jdescottes
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/53417c1fffcc
[devtools] Remove DevToolsServerConnection.spawnActorInParentProcess. r=devtools-reviewers,jdescottes
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/37403101913e
[devtools] Remove network legacy listeners. r=devtools-reviewers,jdescottes

Comment 14

[Marian-Vasile Laza]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/d4bdcc85251d
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/a1d57b3aafbd
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/53417c1fffcc
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/37403101913e