1753747 - Firefox Suggest offers a pile of identical-looking suggestions for Google doc (one for each "heading" in the doc), and often won't offer switch-to-tab

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1389229

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

STR:

1. View this Google Doc (or any Google Doc with "Headings"-formatted text [using the google-doc dropdown menu to the left of the font menu]):
   https://docs.google.com/document/d/15hqLLnlMxfcm2aUre9AC2g7tDlpRIvhtA4buWML0jKA/edit?usp=sharing

2. Click through several (say, 5) of the "Heading" lines (the lines with large text) -- I've numbered the first few so you can tell them apart. Click ~5 different ones. [EDIT: As noted in a later comment, you can also "visit" lots of headings by just selecting them, by e.g. clicking at the top of the doc and dragging to the bottom, being sure your cursor crosses over as many headings as possible on the way.]

3. Open a new tab.

4. Now say you want to find your original tab, using Firefox Suggest. Type "Testing Doc" (part of the page title) into your URL bar.

ACTUAL RESULTS:

• Firefox Suggest gives me many different ~indistinguishable suggestions for me to choose between. (one for each heading that I happen to have traversed, I think, since each heading has its own distinct URL via having different # fragment identifiers).
• None of these suggestions seems to be "Switch to tab" (which is what I actually want, since I know I have this doc open in another tab)

EXPECTED RESULTS:

• I should be prominently offered a Switch To Tab option for this doc.
• We probably should only show one Firefox Suggest Suggestion for this doc (or maybe two, if we want switch-to-tab vs. load-in-this-tab). We shouldn't show a suggestion for every heading in the doc; we should figure out that the distinct #suffixes aren't meaningfully distinct enough to merit distinct suggestions (especially since you can't tell them apart from each other when looking at the suggestions)

Comment 1

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Actually: in a fresh profile, I do see "Switch to tab" as the first option; so that part sometimes-works.

I'll edit the summary to scope this to be about the other part, i.e. the fact that we show a bunch of identical looking suggestions.

Comment 2

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #1)

Actually: in a fresh profile, I do see "Switch to tab" as the first option; so that part sometimes-works.

Aha, ok - if you traverse through all the headings[1], then that seems to be sufficient to cause enough "duplicate" copies of this doc in your history such that Firefox Suggest no longer offers switch-to-tab (which is the ultimate bad outcome here; the duplicates themselves are annoying, but the missing switch-to-tab is the real bummer).

[1] one way to traverse through all the headings is to click the top of the doc to start a selection and then drag to the end of the doc. This "visits" each heading that your cursor drags across (as you can see in your URL bar, if it's large enough to show the #suffix on the URL).

Comment 3

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Attachment: screencast

Here's a screencast, starting with a brand-new fresh profile, showing the "actual results" (many duplicate suggestions, no switch-to-tab).

At the end of the screencast, as an additional demonstration, I untick the "show search suggestions ahead of browsing history". This configuration-change (unticking the box) sets aside space for more Firefox Suggest entries from your browsing history, which in this case means even-more duplicate suggestions appear.

Comment 4

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

[ticking ni=adw to be sure this is on the Firefox Suggest radar. Also CC'd jwatt since he's experienced this as a papercut as well, if I'm recalling a recent conversation correctly.]

Comment 5

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Hmm, my perception was that this was a somewhat-recent issue, but it looks like this issue actually predates Firefox Suggest; I can reproduce the same issue in Nightly 2018-01-01, using our AwesomeBar suggestions in that version. (many duplicate history suggestions, no switch-to-tab suggestion)

(Maybe my misperception about this issue being newly-introduced was based on my increasing usage of Google Docs; or maybe Google Docs only recently started using fragment identifiers for header-text? *shrug*)

Comment 6

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

This shounds like bug 1389229, I think it's the same or a very similar problem that exists from quite some time and we'd really like to resolve it soon.

I don't think it is specific to Suggest, and honestly we're starting using the Suggest term in confusing ways for people to understand its reach. My suggestion is we go back speaking about the address bar experience as a whole.

Do you think there's more to track compared to bug 1389229 that you'd like to point out more specifically?

Comment 7

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

Nope, looks like the same as bug 1389229. Thanks! I'm glad to hear it's something we'd like to resolve soon.

(I had perceived this as being a recent problem, which is why I thought it was associated with Suggest -- but I think I'm just using Google-Docs-that-have-headings [and hence fragment identifiers] now more than I used to, which is why I'm bumping up against this.)