1854999 - Telemetry is recorded when clicking the grayed out buttons and checkboxes from the Settings page

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[Carmen Fat [:cfat] - Ecosystem QA]

[Affected versions]:

• Firefox RC 118 (Build ID: 20230918143747)
• Firefox Nightly 119.0a1 (Build ID: 20230925093027)

[Affected Platforms]:

• Windows 10 x64
• macOS 13.4.1
• Ubuntu 20.04 x64

[Prerequisites]:

• Have Firefox installed.

[Steps to reproduce]:

1. Navigate to about:preferences#search.
2. Scroll down the page.
3. Click the “Restore Default Search Engines” grayed-out button.
4. Navigate to the about:telemetry page.
5. Search for the “restoreDefaultSearchEngines“ telemetry probe.
6. Observe the behavior.

[Expected result]:

• The “restoreDefaultSearchEngines“ telemetry probe does not exist.

[Actual result]:

• The “restoreDefaultSearchEngines” is registered and displayed as a keyed scalar.

[Notes]:

• This issue is reproducible with all the grayed-out buttons and check-boxes from all the Preferences Panes.
  e.g.:
  From the “Search” pane: “Remove” button, “Show search terms instead of URL on default search engine results page” checkbox
  From the “Privacy&Security” pane: “Restore” (dismissed suggestions) button, “Allow Nightly to make personalized extension recommendations” checkbox
• Here is a screen recording of the issue.

Comment 1

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

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::Address Bar' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

This telemetry is being incorrectly recorded when users click on disabled buttons. Do we know if this telemetry is being actively used at the moment, and hence, should this be higher priority than P3?

Comment 3

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Romain, you were the last person I recall using this, is this UI telemetry still in use? Seems problematic to be reporting clicks on disabled elements (though I would hope very few people actually do so).

Comment 4

[Romain Testard [:RT]]

Yes I see it used by PM and UX on many occasions.
I think P3 is right in terms of priority, making sure that this is a known issue (clicks on disabled buttons are captured) is probably good enough for now so PM and UX know it's a limitation - I'll note that knowing the button state in telemetry would be a better fix that not reporting it given that clicks on disabled buttons are valuable signals to have.