Open Bug 1924544 Opened 1 year ago Updated 3 months ago

Sync between Firefox Desktop and Firefox Android is inconsistent

Categories

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

Product:
Firefox for Android
Component:
Accounts and Sync
Version:
Firefox 131
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

Status:
UNCONFIRMED

People

(Reporter: vijai.antony, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:131.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/131.0
Firefox for Android

Steps to reproduce:

Enabled sync (with bookmarks and open tabs options selected) on desktop as well as Android

Actual results:

When I first log in using my firefox account on both devices, the sync works perfectly. It shows the open tabs from both devices and when I choose to close them on either , it works. But after a few minutes the sync stops working. Even if I have open tabs on my android phone, desktop firefox does not show them. I tried manually syncing multiple times but it does not work until I log out on the android and log back in. This issue happens whenever I restart my phone for any reason as well.

Expected results:

The sync should display the open tabs under all circumstances without fail. There can be a minor delay and that is acceptable

This bug is reported in the wild by so many other users (you can see that via google play store reviews). Its a known feature issue on Firefox. If sync works perfectly then I would switch over to Firefox as my default browser immediately. Also, I am so looking forward to being a donor as I love the mission of Mozilla foundation (people over profits) and privacy focus. Please fix the sync issues and let the market know this issue is addressed. I think a lot of people would love it. Also, bringing tab groups will be awesome but I know its currently planned in an upcoming release.

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

Component: Untriaged → Accounts and Sync
Product: Firefox → Fenix

Is Fenix the same as Firefox for Android App?

Flags: needinfo?(jboek)

(In reply to vJs from comment #4)

Is Fenix the same as Firefox for Android App?

Yes, Fenix is the name we use internally for Firefox for Android.

(In reply to Mark Hammond [:markh] [:mhammond] from comment #5)

(In reply to vJs from comment #4)

Is Fenix the same as Firefox for Android App?

Yes, Fenix is the name we use internally for Firefox for Android.

Thank you. I do believe this is a widespread issue (i.e. sync not working all the time)

Any update on this? Has the team confirmed its a bug and a fix is coming?

Flags: needinfo?(jboek)
Severity: -- → S3
Flags: needinfo?(jboek)
Priority: -- → P2

Possible to change the priority to a P0? Mainly because it's reported by many other users via the app store too. A remedy would ensure more users, like me, would switch immediately to Firefox as default browser (and potentially become contributors to Mozilla foundation).

Due to persistent sync issues between Android and Desktop versions, I cannot make this work. Moving to a Chromium based browser for now until the sync issue is fixed fully.

I can repro: when the Android browser is logged in, the desktop browser doesn't list the tabs on the former. As soon as I log out from the Android browser, the list of tabs shows up on the desktop browser.

Kiki from SUMO here. We got one user reporting what is likely to be the same problem through our X/Twitter account (@FirefoxSupport) recently.

The sync seems to be working okay after the 133 stable release. I plan to see it for awhile and then confirm.

Having this issue recently.

Last Sync on Android was over 2 days ago, and pressing "Sync now" does nothing.

New bookmarks and logins on Android aren't synced to Desktop, and vice versa.

Firefox on Android 134.0.1

Same issue for me. Last sync 7 days ago. How can we see the logs for sync failures?

While the process is a little painful, there's some info about getting logs at https://wiki.mozilla.org/CloudServices/Sync/File_an_Android_bug

Nothing happens.

I can use logcat to see logs but when I hit the Sync button, nothing happens. No logs are produced.

Just want to say that eventually my Android browser synced (both ways). At the moment, it is 14 hours ago. Pressing there doesn't do anything, still. But at least it synced.
There was no update from the Play Store in the meantime.

I don't know what exactly is the criteria for the browser to finally Sync, and I don't understand why pressing on "Sync now" does nothing.

I have found that doing the following steps helps with this issue on my phone (running on Android 15) :

  1. Close app

  2. Disable "Allow background usage" : Settings -> App -> Firefox -> App battery usage -> Toggle off "Allow background usage"

  3. Force stop the app : Settings -> App -> Firefox -> "Force Stop"

:scott Regarding logcat I use the following method :

  1. Clear log using :

adb logcat -c

2)Run log without any filtering :

adb logcat -v time

This continues to annoy me, constantly.

The sync just works "whenever it decides to", and it can be several days in between...

Clicking "Sync now" never does anything, when it's hanging. It only worked once for me, when I got it at a time that it was working.
Other than that, it can be "3 days ago" (like now), that it won't matter.

Google Chrome can have many problems, but Sync is something that actually worked very well, at least...

Other people are also complaining here: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1g6gyn5/firefox_on_android_refuses_to_sync/

I don't mind much that it takes a while to automatically sync. But at least pressing "Sync now" should just do it...

Close app
Disable "Allow background usage" : Settings -> App -> Firefox -> App battery usage -> Toggle off "Allow background usage"
Force stop the app : Settings -> App -> Firefox -> "Force Stop"

Tried all of these. Still "3 days ago", and still not doing anything when I press "Sync now"

This comment on Reddit might be helpful:

This started happening a couple of months ago. I don't know where I saw it, but it seems like Firefox Android sends an invalid json and the sync server will reject it eventually. This can be tested with https://github.com/Mikescher/firefox-sync-client

Could it be the case that JSON is not being properly escaped, or something like that?

E.g. using special characters in Bookmarks, that make the JSON invalid, if not properly escaped...

Others complaining about the same: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1489278

I moved to Ironfox and it now syncs as expected. The problem is/was definitely in the Firefox Android client.

This has been a consistent issue for me since ~3 months ago. I tried logcat and a few other methods to identify an error but nothing comes up when I attempt to sync manually. The buttons in sync settings and synced tabs view don't seem to be doing anything. Automatic sync does occur sporadically. I'm using "send tab to device" a lot now, so at least that's working properly.

Sounds a little like https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1812111 - I also think there is another bug on file where it was identified that a UI revamp regressed this, but I'm not sure what else we can do here to get it treated as a priority by the Android team.

This bug is maddening. Please fix or at least acknowledge!

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