1997752 - Firefox Tabs in Taskbar not using correct icon

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Web Apps, defect, P2)

Description

[Lee McGuire]

Attachment: Screenshot 2025-11-01 191145.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:144.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/144.0

Steps to reproduce:

Go to gmail, or google calendar, click "Add tab to taskbar"

Actual results:

Tab installs on taskbar not with Gmail icon but an ugly black globe, image attached

Expected results:

The Gmail icon should be in taskbar, using the favicon from the site. It works with all other websites

Comment 1

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

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

Comment 2

[Ardelean Oana, Desktop Test Engineering [:oardelean]]

Hello, thank you for the bug report!

Managed to reproduce this issue on:

• Firefox Nightly 146.0a1;
• Firefox 145.0b9;
• Firefox 144.0.2;

Tested and reproduced on Windows 10.

Setting as NEW.

Comment 3

[Robin Steuber (she/her) [:bytesized]]

@nrishel Could you please help me set a severity for this?

Comment 4

[Nick Rishel [:nrishel]]

:oardelean is this a consistent issue or does it take a few attempts?

Comment 5

[Ardelean Oana, Desktop Test Engineering [:oardelean]]

This is a consistent issue, I can reproduce from the first try.

STR:

1. Launch Fx.
2. Navigate to calendar.google.com or mail.google.com and login using a valid account.
3. Once logged in, click on the 'Add tab to taskbar' button from the address bar.

Comment 6

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

We figure out what icon to display using the app's start URL, which for GMail is /mail/. However, favicons are organized per-path, so e.g. /a/b/c can have a different icon than /a/b (which is true, they can be different). The user never actually stays on /mail/ before getting redirected to /mail/u/0, so we don't actually have a favicon saved, giving the black globe.

I'll try looking into fixing this, I suspect this'd open the door to manifest icons (bug 1979462) too.

Comment 7

[Lee McGuire]

(In reply to Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh] from comment #6)

We figure out what icon to display using the app's start URL, which for GMail is /mail/. However, favicons are organized per-path, so e.g. /a/b/c can have a different icon than /a/b (which is true, they can be different). The user never actually stays on /mail/ before getting redirected to /mail/u/0, so we don't actually have a favicon saved, giving the black globe.

I'll try looking into fixing this, I suspect this'd open the door to manifest icons (bug 1979462) too.

I have tried to webapp the url mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox and that still shows the black globe, and the same with Google Calendar too.

Comment 9

[Jeff Maher]

(Tuning in from a duplicate ticket: 2001110 where some other sites were problematic too...)

Just wanted to note that I didn't experience this bug until recently. My memory of which Firefox version I started using the new PWA feature is foggy, but it did work as expected before (maybe in v143?). I'm not sure if something changed in Firefox itself, with the sites I'm using, or with Windows 11 -- but just wanted to call out in case that's helpful.

Comment 10

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - If the start URL of a web app doesn't have a favicon, use the URL of the page that was open when it was created. r=nrishel

This only affects shortcut creation; the icon saving should be moved into
TaskbarTabs.sys.mjs to be used for the window icon.

Moving away from the old getFavicon interface was needed to distinguish
whether getting the favicon succeeded. It's also useful in tests,
especially combined with the added encodePNG function, and it will make
manifest icons much easier.

Comment 11

[Ben]

Thanks for looking into this. Looks like chat.google.com has the same issue!

Comment 12

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 1: Separate turning a local URI into an image from getting the favicon. r=nrishel

encodePNG is used later in the patch series. I'm not sure if it's the best
approach, happy to hear alternatives.

getDefaultIcon is also used later in the patch series; it avoids needing
to include the Favicons component everywhere.

Comment 13

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 2: Explicitly pass the icon when calling TaskbarTabsWindowManager. r=nrishel

Comment 14

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 3: Explicitly pass the icon to TaskbarTabsPin. r=nrishel

TaskbarTabsUtils.getFavicon is no longer used, so remove it.

Comment 15

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 4: Request the icon for the original page if the start URI doesn't have a favicon. r=nrishel

Comment 16

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 5: Load a Taskbar Tab's icon from disk if possible. r=nrishel

Comment 17

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 6: Remove TaskbarTabsUtils.getFavicon. r=nrishel

After Parts 2 and 3, this is no longer used. It was replaced by
TaskbarTabs.fetchIconForTaskbarTab in Part 5.

Comment 18

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Possible fix: Add uiFinished promise to findOrCreateTaskbarTab's return object to wait for pinning to complete. r=nrishel

Comment 19

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/b8f35af5cb27
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/f944418c15ee
Part 1: Separate turning a local URI into an image from getting the favicon. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/fbf93f7ba120
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/a7cfc71e00bd
Part 2: Explicitly pass the icon when calling TaskbarTabsWindowManager. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/991f38ff2b17
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/e8167eeadd3e
Part 3: Explicitly pass the icon to TaskbarTabsPin. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/caeebc840cd2
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/145e79c7b3b0
Part 4: Request the icon for the original page if the start URI doesn't have a favicon. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/f258ba119088
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/fe4908be3958
Part 5: Load a Taskbar Tab's icon from disk if possible. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/15dc0408fff7
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/63efb741a3e5
Part 6: Remove TaskbarTabsUtils.getFavicon. r=nrishel

Comment 20

[amarc]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/f944418c15ee
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/a7cfc71e00bd
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/e8167eeadd3e
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/145e79c7b3b0
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/fe4908be3958
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/63efb741a3e5

Comment 21

[Ardelean Oana, Desktop Test Engineering [:oardelean]]

Reproducible on a 2026-02-10 Firefox Nightly build on Windows 10.

Verified as fixed on Firefox Nightly 150.0a1 and Firefox 149.0b1 on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Comment 23

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 1: Separate turning a local URI into an image from getting the favicon.

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D279399

Comment 24

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 2: Explicitly pass the icon when calling TaskbarTabsWindowManager.

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D279400

Comment 25

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 3: Explicitly pass the icon to TaskbarTabsPin.

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D279401

Comment 26

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 4: Request the icon for the original page if the start URI doesn't have a favicon.

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D279402

Comment 27

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 5: Load a Taskbar Tab's icon from disk if possible.

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D279403

Comment 28

[Phabricator Automation]

firefox-release Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: The icons associated with taskbar tabs on some websites, particularly Google properties like GMail, are currently a generic globe, which makes it harder for the user to figure out what the taskbar tab is for. It's also an obvious site that users would use with Taskbar Tabs, to the point that we had a campaign promoting it there, so the issue is pretty visible.
• Code covered by automated testing: yes
• Fix verified in Nightly: yes
• Needs manual QE test: yes
• Steps to reproduce for manual QE testing: For each site in: www.wikipedia.org, www.blender.org, mail.google.com (logged in, showing inbox):

1. Open the site in a new tab.
2. Click on the 'Add tab to taskbar' button in the address bar.
3. Verify that the icon shown in the taskbar is correct, i.e. matches the favicon of the tab. (is Wikipedia a stylized 'W', blender its logo, gmail the colourful envelope)
4. You should be prompted to pin it to your taskbar, accept.
5. Close the window. Verify that the icon on the taskbar is still correct.
6. Open the Start menu and search for the site ('Wikipedia', 'Blender', 'Google Mail'). The icon should be the same as in #3 and #5. Open the shortcut.
7. Verify that the taskbar icon is still correct for the new window.
8. Click on the 'Remove tab from taskbar' button in the address bar.

• Risk associated with taking this patch: medium
• Explanation of risk level: While the code changes aren't 100% trivial and there's several medium-size revisions, most of the changes are to tests. The actual substantial code changes are relatively small, they're in JavaScript code that is well-tested and only runs when the user interacts with Taskbar Tabs, and the patch has been in Nightly and Beta for the last few weeks without any regressions.
• String changes made/needed: no
• Is Android affected?: no

Comment 29

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1997752 - Part 6: Remove TaskbarTabsUtils.getFavicon.

After Parts 2 and 3, this is no longer used. It was replaced by
TaskbarTabs.fetchIconForTaskbarTab in Part 5.

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D279571