1846946 - fenix tells me that it synced bookmark since 0 minutes, but it's not true

Status: NEW

(Firefox for Android :: Accounts and Sync, defect, P2)

Description

[Lazy Monkey]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/116.0

Steps to reproduce:

On firefox 116 (win10 desktop and android) I have configured sync (I sync all except open tabs).

then I added a bookmark on android and needed to have it on desktop.
so on android I went to sync config and it told me sync since 0 minutes.
when I read this I think that firefox has just finished syncing.

so I wen to desktop, and manually started the sync, to check for the new bookmark.

Actual results:

on desktop I manually started syncing and after it finished the new bookmark was not there.

Expected results:

the new bookmark should have been there.

I had to go back to android, and manually sync.
then go to desktop and manually sync again.
finally I could see the new bookmark.

I think that on android the text about minutes since last sync is not working at all.

Comment 1

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

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:royang, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 2

[Roger Yang [:royang]]

Serious issue. Though a workaround exists. Will need to reproduce.

Comment 3

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

Is it possible that a quick "tabs sync" updated that timer?

While we should fix that (and we should fix that on desktop too, as it has the same issue), another option which probably will have a higher impact is to make sure a full (or just bookmark) sync is triggered as soon as a bookmark is modified. This is what happens on Desktop, but IIRC, does not happen on Android.

Comment 4

[Mira Lobontiu (Android QA)]

I was able to reproduce on all versions of Firefox for Android (Nightly 118.0a1 from 8/22, Beta 117.0b9, and RC 117.0 build 1), with the following devices:

• Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (Android 9), and
• Oppo Find X3 Lite (Android 11).

Prerequisites:
Sign in with the same account on Android and Desktop (Windows 10)

STR:

1. Bookmark a page on Android.
2. From synced tabs, tap on "Sync" (I've verified that in 'Settings' - 'Account' - 'Sync now' the message was "Last synced: 0 minutes ago").
3. On desktop, trigger sync.
4. On desktop, search for that bookmark by typing a word or some letters.

Notes:

• if I triggerred sync from Settings - Account - Sync now, then trigger sync on Desktop, the bookmark is displayed when searching,
• I had both Android devices and desktop in sync, and following the steps above, the bookmarked page from Android device 1 was not suggested when searching on Android device 2

Comment 5

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

UX Fundamentals bug for squad 1

Comment 6

[Alexandra Virvara]

I have investigated this bug and it's not difficult to reproduce it by following the given steps on any device. The problem, however, doesn't seem to be on Android side, but coming from Gecko layer, while trying to sync clients (the comments in the code suggest that this is a known issue). The problem can also be reproduced the other way around: save bookmark on desktop, sync and check the bookmarks list on android client (and our saved bookmark cannot be found)

Comment 7

[Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond]]

(In reply to Alexandra Virvara from comment #6)

The problem, however, doesn't seem to be on Android side, but coming from Gecko layer, while trying to sync clients (the comments in the code suggest that this is a known issue).

It will be application-services rather than gecko, and I suspect it will be when it is asked to sync tabs (Fenix can't ask for "clients" to be synced, that's all managed internally)

The problem can also be reproduced the other way around: save bookmark on desktop, sync and check the bookmarks list on android client (and our saved bookmark cannot be found)

It depends on what you mean here: if the user manually hits "Sync now" and the bookmarks do not show up, then that's a different bug. I suspect this specific problem is something like:

• It's possible for Fenix to ask to sync everything, or just a single thing. Fenix will quite regularly ask for just tabs to be synced to ensure our list of remote tabs is fresh and the list of tabs from this device as shown on other devices is fresh.
• Fenix just has a single timestamp for "last synced", regardless of whether everything was requested or just tabs.
• These 2 things combine to cause this bug - even if the last time we synced bookmarks was an hour ago, if we synced just tabs 1 second ago, then Fenix will simply report the last sync was 1 second ago. This might lead users to believe bookmarks etc were synced 1 second ago, but in reality they were last synced an hour ago.

I believe the simplest fix here is to arrange so that a sync of a single specific engine (most likely "tabs") doesn't advance this last-synced timestamp, but instead it only advances on a "full" sync.