1853289 - Persist search term is still displayed after adding the search bar

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect, P3)

Description

[Cristian Baica [:cbaica], Release Desktop QA]

Attachment: persist search term with searchbar enabled

Found in

• Fx 118.0b9

Affected versions

• Fx 119.0a1
• Fx 118.0b9
• Fx 117.0

Affected platforms

• Windows 10
• Ubuntu 20

Preconditions
Have browser.urlbar.showSearchTerms.featureGate set to true (only required for beta and RC, currently default true in nightly builds).

Steps to reproduce

1. Launch Firefox.
2. Open a new tab and perform a search.
3. Open another new tab, click the address bar and then the cogwheel located at the bottom right of the address bar drop-down.
4. Enable the search bar from the preferences page.
5. Go back to the tab where the search was performed.

Expected result

• Full URL for the SERP page is displayed.

Actual result

• The search term is still displayed in the URL bar.

Regression range

• I'm not sure how or why this is happening, but I was unable to get a regression range on this. When I ran the bisection, it took me all the way back to the implementation of the feature, but this WAS NOT the initial behavior.

Additional notes

• Issue happens intermittently, but whenever I reproduced it, I was using the steps mentioned above.
• Searches performed after adding the searchbar correctly display the full URL of the SERP in the address bar and not the search term.

Comment 1

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

:cbaica, could you try to find a regression range using for example mozregression?

Comment 2

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

I suspect something's wrong here
https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/b741ddde6c678ca7025858952202d20664491555/browser/components/urlbar/UrlbarInput.sys.mjs#389-404
maybe in some cases selectedBrowser.searchTerms is not reset

Comment 3

[James Teow [:jteow]]

Thanks for the video, Cristian. I was able to reproduce this on OSX. It is because of the Persisted Search Tip.

Notice right before the tab is switched, the search tip shows up. When it does, it sets the userTypedValue to the search term. The problem is upon its dismissal (clicking outside the Urlbar), it doesn't revert userTypedValue, so when you return to the tab, it won't clear the search term. This is because the way the view is closed is through the _on_mousedown event: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/7499890dc8f116a9e40f4a689a251a0311a9f461/browser/components/urlbar/UrlbarInput.sys.mjs#3495

There's nothing in that flow that resets the userTypedValue.

This isn't an issue if a user selects "Got It" inside the search tip because that action also select's the Urlbar, so if you click on a tab afterward, it'll blur and undo the userTypedValue matching the persisted search term.

I think it is worth an S3 because if new users see the search tip, don't agree with the feature, and try to undo it within the preferences panel, going back to the SERP might confuse them into thinking changing the preference didn't work.