1917640 - Toolbar on Firefox Android should always default to the top based on experiment run in May 2023

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for Android :: Toolbar, defect, P2)

Description

[Channing]

Attachment: Experiment: Android Default Toolbar Placement

Steps to reproduce

1. Download Firefox Android using a Google Pixel 3

2. Complete onboarding

3. Notice that the toolbar defaults to the bottom of the screen.
   Per this experiment. It should default at the top. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OybAJ4-ZXPBJ1pOm7IkOOZJiodpc-_6vKRyKqxTzDds/edit#heading=h.kzffe2a93ndd

4. Download Firefox Android on an AT&T phone

5. Complete Onboarding

6. Notice that the toolbar defaults to the top of the screen. This is the correct behavior.

Expected Behavior: Toolbar should default to the top of the screen.

Actual behavior: Toolbar defaults to the bottom of the screen on some devices. Seems like the experiment may be still running.

Device information

• Firefox version: 130
• Android device model: AT&T and Google Pixel 3
• Android OS version:

Any additional information?

Comment 2

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

The top position is enabled in the Release channel by this Nimbus rollout to Android 116+ (August 2023), but we never changed the default in code or in the Nightly and Beta channels:

https://experimenter.services.mozilla.com/nimbus/android-default-toolbar-placement-treatment-a-rollout/summary

We should remove the android-default-toolbar-placement-treatment-a-rollout experiment:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/79f37e7fcd8994d86b0c610a87af4ef0343166ee/mobile/android/fenix/app/src/main/res/raw/initial_experiments.json#3-59

Comment 3

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

We should end the rollout after this fix hits the Release channel, but not until March 2025!

The Nimbus team recommends ending rollouts three months after the fix enabling a feature by default hits the Release channel. That gives users that are slow to update three months to finally update. We don't want to stop the rollout before those users update because then the feature would turn off for them.

https://experimenter.services.mozilla.com/nimbus/android-default-toolbar-placement-treatment-a-rollout/summary

Comment 4

[Roger Yang [:royang]]

Attachment: Bug 1917640 - Update toolbar default position to top

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/93c09fa61524
Update toolbar default position to top r=android-reviewers,skhan,harrisono

Comment 6

[Sandor Molnar[:smolnar]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/93c09fa61524

Comment 7

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

The patch landed in nightly and beta is affected.
:royang, is this bug important enough to require an uplift?

• If yes, please nominate the patch for beta approval.
• If no, please set status-firefox131 to wontfix.

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 8

[Timothy Nikkel (:tnikkel)]

(In reply to Chris Peterson [:cpeterson] from comment #2)

The top position is enabled in the Release channel by this Nimbus rollout to Android 116+ (August 2023), but we never changed the default in code or in the Nightly and Beta channels:

This doesn't seem to match my experience.

I have Firefox release on a phone for many years, it is not signed in to sync. The toolbar is on the bottom.

I just installed Firefox release on a brand new phone (it had Firefox beta on it already, which was signed in to sync). The freshly installed Firefox release was not signed in to sync, and the toolbar was on the bottom.

Not sure I've ever seen the toolbar on top outside of manually changing the setting to test some bug report.

Do we have an idea of what could be happening on my phones?

Comment 9

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Roger, do you know why Timothy and I are still have the bottom toolbar in the Release channel?

This Nimbus rollout ought to be enabling toolbar-position-top for new users on Firefox 116+ since August 2023, but I can reproduce the same behavior as Timothy. I cleared my Firefox 130's storage, uninstalled, and reinstalled, but my toolbar is still on the bottom. I don't know why my reinstallation doesn't count as isFirstRun. I saw the onboarding flow.

((is_already_enrolled) || ((isFirstRun == 'true') && (app_version|versionCompare('116.!') >= 0)))

https://experimenter.services.mozilla.com/nimbus/android-default-toolbar-placement-treatment-a-rollout/summary

Maybe we don't need to solve this problem since this bug to make toolbar-position-top the default in Fx 132+ is riding the trains now. Nimbus says about 5M DAU are enrolled in this rollout, but our overall Release channel DAU is about 10M. If this rollout isn't working (and since it only targeted new users), will 5M existing users have their toolbar position changed from bottom to top? If so, we should add a release note and tell the SUMO support team people how can move the toolbar back to the bottom.

https://mozilla.cloud.looker.com/dashboards/216?Experiment=android-default-toolbar-placement-treatment-a-rollout&Time+Range+%5BUTC%5D=28+day

Comment 10

[Timothy Nikkel (:tnikkel)]

As another data point, I asked a friend who had never had Firefox on their phone to install Firefox release, their toolbar was on the bottom as well.

Comment 11

[Roger Yang [:royang]]

Unfortunately this change only landed on Sept 16th 2024. From the release calendar it will be in Firefox Android release in v132 which is October 29th. You can try it out in Nightly right now to see if the behaviour is what you expected. Thanks.

For the current release, if you didn't touch the settings for a few days the experiment should kick in and move the toolbar to the top. But that's is probably not what Timothy is looking for. This is one of the reason why I made the change to move the toolbar to the top without the need of an experiment. Thanks for reporting this, but unfortunately this is something we should have fixed a long time ago.

Comment 12

[Timothy Nikkel (:tnikkel)]

I guess the context of my question was not clear, I'm not advocating for a certain setting of the toolbar.

I'm here because the apz wanted to know how many users have the toolbar on top vs bottom in order to inform their decision making (ie if 1% of users have the toolbar on top then bugs that only affect toolbar on top would be treated with a lower priority then if it was 50%). The answer from comment 2 surprised me because I've never seen the toolbar on top (outside of flipping the pref myself to test a specific bug report) despite being an avid user of Firefox for android on many devices and being a gecko developer working on Firefox for Android specific things some of the time.

So my concern was if our understanding of the toolbar position did not correspond to reality then our decisions would be made with incorrect information.

(In reply to Roger Yang [:royang] from comment #11)

For the current release, if you didn't touch the settings for a few days the experiment should kick in and move the toolbar to the top. But that's is probably not what Timothy is looking for. This is one of the reason why I made the change to move the toolbar to the top without the need of an experiment.

So you're saying that for the newly installed Firefox release I should see the toolbar move to the top in a few days?

What about the Firefox release that has been installed for years on a phone and the toolbar is still on the bottom? Is the only explanation for that that I must have flipped the pref at some point in the past to test something and then flipped it back? Can I check that somehow?

Comment 13

[Timothy Nikkel (:tnikkel)]

(In reply to Timothy Nikkel (:tnikkel) from comment #10)

As another data point, I asked a friend who had never had Firefox on their phone to install Firefox release, their toolbar was on the bottom as well.

Actually, there was a miscommunication with my friend, they already had Firefox installed on their phone for a while and the toolbar is still at the bottom as of today. They said that they never touched the toolbar setting (I wouldn't expect them to even know such setting existed). They think that Firefox got automatically transferred over to their new phone when they set it up in January. I don't believe they are logged in to sync. Where do we expect the toolbar to be under that scenario?

Comment 14

[Roger Yang [:royang]]

(In reply to Timothy Nikkel (:tnikkel) from comment #12)

So you're saying that for the newly installed Firefox release I should see the toolbar move to the top in a few days?

Sorry, I wasn't clear. It will be in v132 release. Which is end of October link

What about the Firefox release that has been installed for years on a phone and the toolbar is still on the bottom? Is the only explanation for that that I must have flipped the pref at some point in the past to test something and then flipped it back? Can I check that somehow?

Unfortunately no. But this issue you're seeing is something that won't ever happen in v132. Since we now directly hard code toolbar at "Top" as the default beahviour.

Comment 15

[Roger Yang [:royang]]

To be clear, we dropped the ball here. The experiment shouldn't have been left running for an extra year when the decision was to make the toolbar default to the top position. What I did in this change was something that we should have done a year ago. But to be safe, we want this change to release normally which means there's another 4-5 weeks before the change shows up in release builds. Thanks

Comment 16

[Roger Yang [:royang]]

(In reply to Chris Peterson [:cpeterson] from comment #9)

Roger, do you know why my Timothy and I are still have the bottom toolbar in the Release channel?

This could be something we should open a bug for Nimbus. However, on the Firefox Android, there's nothing we can do now since I've already remove the experiment flag completely and hard coded the behaviour to "Top".

Comment 17

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Why is this notable]: This bug changes the toolbar setting's default position so some users might not like it.
[Affects Firefox for Android]: Yes. This change only affects Firefox Android. Focus Android's toolbar already defaults to the top position.
[Suggested wording]: The address bar's default position has moved from the bottom of the screen to the top for new users. You can use the "Customize > Toolbar" setting to move the toolbar back to the bottom: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/move-navigation-bar.
[Links (documentation, blog post, etc)]: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/move-navigation-bar

Comment 18

[Roger Yang [:royang]]

After some thought and discussions, I agree there is a problem that I should fix here. Toolbar position should never move after first run. I've create an issue and will make a fix there. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1922066

Comment 19

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Nimbus first run bug 1920702 in Fx 129+ might explain why the toolbar-position-top rollout stopped working.

Comment 20

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Added to the Fx132 relnotes.