1869400 - The content is totally broken(unable click, scroll broken) and tab loading indicator spinning forever when click back button after open external link if set browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external to 1.

Status: NEW

(Core :: DOM: Navigation, defect)

Description

[Alice0775 White]

Steps to reproduce:
0. Set Firefox as default browser

1. Set browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external to 1
2. Open any page in current tab
3. Open any external link from other application or double click on a shortcut link from explorer.
4. Click Back button (or Alt+←)

Actual results:
The content is totally broken(unable click, scroll broken).
Tab loading indicator spinning forever.
Stop button is shown instead of Reload button.

Expected results:
The previous page is shown and able to interact.
Tab loading spinner should be stop and indicate site icon.
Reload button should be shown.

Disable fission (fission.autostart=false) fix the issue.

Comment 1

[Alice0775 White]

Regression window with fission.autostart=true:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/pushloghtml?fromchange=ab936b7f0c9f9e0b27e42e3f7909131bface08b9&tochange=7d32671931b7c2f5cb24b0f4d62bb6884e484175

Comment 2

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

:peterv, since you are the author of the regressor, bug 1715300, could you take a look? Also, could you set the severity field?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 3

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

Set release status flags based on info from the regressing bug 1715300

Comment 4

[Donal Meehan [:dmeehan]]

:farre could this be triaged for severity?

Comment 5

[Andreas Farre [:farre]]

Easy S2 I guess, is there any UI for setting browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external, or is that a config setting only?

Comment 6

[Alice0775 White]

(In reply to Andreas Farre [:farre] from comment #5)

Easy S2 I guess, is there any UI for setting browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external, or is that a config setting only?

It cannot be set from about:preferences (setting UI). It can only be configured in about:config.

Comment 7

[Hsin-Yi Tsai (she/her) [:hsinyi]]

We probably should understand better how common browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external is set to 1. Without having more ideas about that, I am not sure I see the high severity or the impact of this issue, given it's not a default behavior we ship.

Comment 8

[Hsin-Yi Tsai (she/her) [:hsinyi]]

(In reply to Hsin-Yi Tsai (she/her) [:hsinyi] from comment #7)

We probably should understand better how common browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external is set to 1. Without having more ideas about that, I am not sure I see the high severity or the impact of this issue, given it's not a default behavior we ship.

Hi Gijs, I think this is probably more of a question for you to suggest the severity and impact of this non-default broswer UI behavior. In general, I'd think a defect resulting from non-default configurations/preferences isn't S2 according to the definition, but I'd like to check with you in case I miss outstanding use cases here. Thanks!

Comment 9

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Yeah, this doesn't need to be S2 in terms of how it affects users. There may be non-default settings that do need to be S2, but given this has been broken for 2 years before someone found and filed a bug, and the fact that there's an easy workaround (copy paste the url into a new tab) means that it's probably not super high priority.

However, depending on what Peter/Andreas think this means for bfcache and where the root of the problem is, it may be worth fixing separately? I'm pretty confused as to why a page load would be able to have this effect at all, when normal navigation from the address bar or similar doesn't... I would feel better if we understood the issue a bit more.

Bouncing needinfo for the latter.

Comment 10

[Hsin-Yi Tsai (she/her) [:hsinyi]]

(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #9)

Yeah, this doesn't need to be S2 in terms of how it affects users. There may be non-default settings that do need to be S2, but given this has been broken for 2 years before someone found and filed a bug, and the fact that there's an easy workaround (copy paste the url into a new tab) means that it's probably not super high priority.

However, depending on what Peter/Andreas think this means for bfcache and where the root of the problem is, it may be worth fixing separately? I'm pretty confused as to why a page load would be able to have this effect at all, when normal navigation from the address bar or similar doesn't... I would feel better if we understood the issue a bit more.

When we reviewed this in our team meeting, no one seemed to have a quick idea about what' up here...
Peter, sorry that I redirect the needinfo to you, if you have some theories or best guess, which may address Gijs' confusion.

Bouncing needinfo for the latter.

Comment 12

[Hsin-Yi Tsai (she/her) [:hsinyi]]

Clearing my needinfo. If there's urge to get more clarity, please request a new needinfo.