1961878 - browser.translations.enable = FALSE doesn't disable the built-in translation engine

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Translations, defect)

Description

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to about:support and set browser.translations.enable to FALSE.
2. Exit Firefox
3. Delete Profile/storage/permanent/chrome/idb/3870112724rsegmnoittet-es* - a directory and two files.
4. Start the browser

Actual results:

Under Profile/storage/permanent/chrome/idb/:

3.9M	3870112724rsegmnoittet-es.files
4.1M	3870112724rsegmnoittet-es.sqlite
0	3870112724rsegmnoittet-es.sqlite-wal

Expected results:

3870112724rsegmnoittet-es.files directory and 3870112724rsegmnoittet-es.sqlite files are NOT created.

Comment 1

[Monica Chiorean]

I was able to reproduce the steps from description using Win11x64 and Firefox build 140.0a1(20250429231535), files are recreated once Firefox starts.
Marking issue as new for engineering input. Thank you.

Comment 2

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

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:epavlov, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 3

[Erik Nordin [:nordzilla]]

Hi Artem S. Tashkinov, thanks for reporting this.

I want to confirm and clarify a few things to gain a better understanding of the situation here.

---

Firstly, can you elaborate more on what "doesn't disable the built-in translation engine" means? I just tried setting browser.translations.enable to false in Firefox Nightly 140, and I was unable to invoke any Translations functionality. Are you experiencing something different?

---

Secondly, I did a bit of digging into the rsegmnoittet-es files that you are referring to, and based on reading Bug 1631964, which predates the Translations feature in Firefox, they appear to be general Remote Settings storage shared by many features in the browser, including, but not limited to, Translations.

Can you provide more information about why you suspect that the data in your re-created rsegmnoittet-es files are related to the Translations feature, and not other browser features that utilize Remote Settings storage?

Comment 4

[Erik Nordin [:nordzilla]]

To get another knowledgeable perspective here as well, :leplatrem, based on your participation in Bug 1631964 and your familiarity with Remote Settings, could you confirm whether it would be an expected occurrence for these files to be re-created independent of their relationship to Translations?

My assumption is that this is a general Remote Settings action, not a Translations-specific action, though I may be wrong.

Comment 5

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

If someone from Mozilla can definitively confirm that rsegmnoittet-es files are not related to the translation engine, this bug can be closed as INVALID, but from my limited understanding they are used to fetch and store translation data.

Comment 6

[Mathieu Leplatre [:leplatrem]]

Remote Settings is a background service that allows us to update some data independantly from binaries updates (addons blocklist, certificates, wallpapers, etc.). We have 90+ collections and the translations models is one of them.

Depending on how the translation engine code is implemented, it is possible that some specific local data remains after the feature is disabled. Since the translation files are rather big, it would be relevant to figure this out.

But if you delete your rsegmnoittet-es folder and it gets re-created, this is expected. Because there are other components using this. It should contain a sqlite database etc.