1963537 - New tab page blank even when set to Firefox Home in 138.0

Status: ASSIGNED

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect)

Description

[Moltres Rider]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:138.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/138.0

Steps to reproduce:

Click the + in the tab bar to open a new tab
blank page shows
Check settings
Verified that it says "Firefox Home" and not blank page

Actual results:

Ever since updating to Firefox 138.0, the new tab page is always blank despite settings being set to Firefox Home.

Expected results:

I should see all my shortcuts and recently visited websites on my New Tab page.

Comment 1

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

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

Comment 2

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hi Moltres,

Thanks for filing. I have some diagnostic questions to ask:

1. If you restart the browser in Troubleshoot Mode (Help > Troubleshoot Mode), does the problem still occur?
2. Does the problem persist in any newly created profiles? You can create a new profile by setting browser.profiles.enabled to true in about:config, and following these instructions

Comment 3

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

These posts / comments on Reddit are reporting something similar:

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1kbbum9/new_tab_loads_aboutblank_in_firefox_138_even/
2. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1kan4tq/comment/mpoqsa0/
3. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1kan4tq/comment/mpphyrb/
4. https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1kan4tq/comment/mppi51g/

Comment 4

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Another question, Moltres - to rule out a corrupted update install, could you attempt to do a clean reinstallation to see if that fixes the issue?

Instructions here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-keeps-crashing-startup#w_try-a-clean-installation

Note that a clean installation will not delete your bookmarks, saved passwords, add-ons, or other personal information. This information is stored separately in your profile folder.

Comment 5

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

If the clean reinstallation does not help, as another diagnostic to help us figure out what's going wrong, can you go to about:config and set extensions.logging.enabled to true, restart the browser, and then use Ctrl-Shift-J to open up the Browser Console. Can you then paste the contents of what the console shows after the restart into this bug?

Comment 6

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Also, if you visit about:support, and click "Copy text to clipboard", can you paste its contents into this bug?

Comment 7

[Moltres Rider]

Attachment: Log

Here is a console window log

I am Arceist_Justin on Reddit btw

Comment 8

[Moltres Rider]

Here is a console window log

I am Arceist_Justin on Reddit btw

Comment 9

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Thank you Moltres! That's very, very helpful. We're examining the log, and we'll let you know if we need more diagnostic information.

Comment 10

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hi Moltres, we have another diagnostic step we'd hoping you can run to help us figure out what's happening here.

If you visit about:support, and click "Clear startup cache", and then click "Restart" in the dialog that appears, is the problem still present?

Comment 11

[Moltres Rider]

Yes, the problem still exists when I clear startup cache. tried twice.

Comment 12

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Thanks, Moltres.

I have a request for more debugging information, if you have a second. Can you please:

1. Visit about:config and set devtools.chrome.enabled to true
2. Re-open the Browser Console, which should now have a text input at the bottom

Type in the following:

WebExtensionPolicy.getByID("[e-mail]");

and press enter. What does it return?

Comment 13

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Another piece of information that'd be helpful - if you type in resource://builtin-addons/ in your address bar and press enter, you'll see a list of resource folders listed. What are they?

Comment 14

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

The about:support information requested in comment 6 would also be very helpful if you can supply it! Thanks!

Comment 15

[Moltres Rider]

Attachment: About support

WebExtensionPolicy.getByID("[e-mail]");
null 


Index of resource://builtin-addons/
Name 	Size 	Last Modified
formautofill/
		1/1/1980 	12:00:00 AM
newtab/
		1/1/1980 	12:00:00 AM
pictureinpicture/
		1/1/1980 	12:00:00 AM
search-detection/
		1/1/1980 	12:00:00 AM
webcompat/
		1/1/1980 	12:00:00 AM

Comment 16

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Attachment: Bug 1963537 - Revert "Bug 1949511 - Enable newtab as a built-in addon by default. r=sergesanspaille!"

This reverts commit 76cde57923f94bf6103b7360950670eef3f58800.

Comment 17

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hi Moltres,

Some more information we hope you can provide:

Can you please go to about:preferences, and scroll down to "Firefox Updates". There's a button in that section called "Show Update History", which when clicked will open a dialog to show how updates have been applied in the past.

Can you please click on that, make the dialog nice and big (using the resizer grippy in the bottom right corner) and either take a screenshot or a photo of what it looks like and post that here?

Comment 18

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Also, in about:support, what is the value next to "Distribution ID" under the "Application Basics" table? That value was stripped out from the report pasted in comment 15.

Comment 19

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hi Moltres,

One other new piece of information that'd be useful, alongside what we requested in comment 18 and comment 17:

1. Visit about:support
2. Click "Open Folder" next to the entry "Profile Folder" under "Application Basics"
3. Close Firefox
4. Copy the files extensions.json and addonStartup.json.lz4 into a new folder somewhere
5. Re-open Firefox
6. Attach those files to this bug?

Note that those two files just contain information about what addons you have installed. It may, however, also contain the URLs of where you installed those add-ons from if you didn't happen to get them from addons.mozilla.org, as well as any custom "match patterns" for URLs that your add-ons may use for doing request interception.

If you're not comfortable sharing those here on Bugzilla, you can feel free to email them to me at [e-mail].

Comment 20

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/rev/b4ef7aed5960

Comment 21

[jeremy.holman]

Attachment: update history of a Firefox install affected by this Bug (not OP)

Comment 22

[jeremy.holman]

I am also experiencing the problem.

Windows 10 , Firefox 138.0
The unusual thing about my hardware is that the CPU is an ancient i5-4690.
Another oddity is that I keep well over a thousand FF tabs open, across 20+ windows.

I did clear the startup cache, it didn't help.

In the Parent process Browser Console, there's an insane amount of junk, but the thing that happens on New Tab is always and only:
NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE: Component returned failure code: 0x80040111 (NS_ERROR_NOT_AVAILABLE) [nsIIOService.newChannelFromURIWithLoadInfo] AboutNewTabRedirector.sys.mjs:526

WebExtensionPolicy.getByID("[e-mail]") returned null.

Index of resource://builtin-addons/
formautofill/
newtab/
pictureinpicture/
search-detection/
webcompat/

here's no Distribution ID in my about:support. It's an empty cell in the table. Build ID 20250421163656

From about:support, a full list of Enabled Add-ons:

Canadian English Dictionary dictionary 3.1.3 true app-profile [e-mail]
Add-ons Search Detection extension 2.0.0 true app-builtin-addons [e-mail]
Form Autofill extension 1.0.1 true app-builtin-addons [e-mail]
Greasemonkey extension 4.13 true app-profile {e4a8a97b-f2ed-450b-b12d-ee082ba24781}
New Tab extension 138.0.0 true app-builtin-addons [e-mail]
Picture-In-Picture extension 1.0.0 true app-builtin-addons [e-mail]
uBlock Origin extension 1.61.2 true app-profile [e-mail]
Web Compatibility Interventions extension 138.3.0 true app-builtin-addons [e-mail]
Language: English (CA) locale 138.0.20250430.203103 true app-profile [e-mail]
Nature Gray Theme theme 6.0 true app-profile nature-gray-theme@weijarz

Comment 23

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Thanks, jeremy! Are you also able to supply the addon manager log (see comment 5), and the extensions.json / addonStartup.json.lz4 files from the affected profile (comment 18)? That information could help us narrow in on what happened here.

Comment 24

[yuzu]

Hello, after disabling and re-enabling my theme, the issue was sorted—at least for me. Please look into it.

Comment 25

[Moltres Rider]

(In reply to yuzu from comment #24)

Hello, after disabling and re-enabling my theme, the issue was sorted—at least for me. Please look into it.

Unfortunately, that did not work for me. Still blank page for new tab.

Comment 26

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hi yuzu,

That's very interesting! Can we see your about:support (comment 6), and can you tell us which theme you disabled and re-enabled?

Comment 27

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hi Moltres,

We're hoping for just a few more pieces of critical information from you, if you have a few moments:

1. comment 17
2. comment 18
3. comment 19

Comment 28

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

We've just released Firefox 138.0.1, which we believe will fix this issue for affected users: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/138.0.1/releasenotes/

HOWEVER, Moltres, it'd be extremely helpful if we could get that information requested in comment 17, comment 18 and comment 19, before you upgrade, so that we don't inadvertently lose some information that could help us determine why this occurred.

Comment 29

[yuzu]

The things I did:

1. Cleared browsing data and cookies (It didn't fix the issue. I restarted Firefox.)
2. Disabled and re-enabled all my add-ons (It didn't fix the issue, but I didn't restart Firefox.)
3. Disabled and re-enabled my theme. (It did fix the issue when I restarted Firefox.)

My theme: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/beautifultotaldark/

Comment 30

[Moltres Rider]

My "New Tab" page is back. It turns out that I needed to restart Firefox after disabling and re-enabling my theme.

Comment 31

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

(In reply to Moltres Rider from comment #30)

My "New Tab" page is back. It turns out that I needed to restart Firefox after disabling and re-enabling my theme.

Thanks Moltres - did that fix occur before you got the update to 138.0.1?

Comment 32

[Moltres Rider]

Yes. I saw it before the update was downloaded. I have been checking for updates since the bug was marked fixed and I saw the new tab just as it was "downloading update" but has not been applied yet.

Comment 33

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Okay, thank you! If anybody is still experiencing this, and hasn't yet updated to 138.0.1, we'd love to get copies of your addon databases to help us debug what went wrong here. Please see comment 19 for instructions.

Comment 34

[jeremy.holman]

Yeah, I'm just waking up, I'll email you ASAP

Comment 35

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Thank you!

Comment 36

[jeremy.holman]

And thank you!

Comment 37

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Attachment: Bug 1963537 - Back out "Bug 1949511 - Enable newtab as a built-in addon by default. "

This backs out commit ab1fa78c50225a45876ff9c0ff6344456b323fef.

Comment 38

[Phabricator Automation]

firefox-beta Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: Some users may be at risk of seeing a blank newtab / home page. This patch puts us on better footing to do more testing that bug 1964281 fixes the corrupted addon database issue.
• Code covered by automated testing: yes
• Fix verified in Nightly: no
• Needs manual QE test: no
• Steps to reproduce for manual QE testing: N/A
• Risk associated with taking this patch: Low.
• Explanation of risk level: This puts us into a "classic" configuration where we package newtab as a normal browser component, which we've shipped for years.
• String changes made/needed: None.
• Is Android affected?: no

Comment 39

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/4828c5bfb24b