2039334 - Disable backup on MacOS to fix prompting issue

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Profile Backup, task, P1)

Description

[Harshit Sohaney [:hsohaney]]

Finding backups needs access to the Documents folder, which makes MacOS request for access. If a user decides to not give access, firefox has no mechanism to respect the previous choice. This can be of annoyance to users. The solution here is to disable searching for backups on MacOS - but due to missed release dates, we will fix that in the next release

Comment 1

[Harshit Sohaney [:hsohaney]]

Attachment: Bug 2039334 - disable backup on MacOS. r=cdupuis

Comment 2

[Phabricator Automation]

firefox-beta Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined/Reason for urgency: MacOS users will see a prompt for firefox to access the docs directory on every startup if they do not accept.
• Code covered by automated testing?: no
• Fix verified in Nightly?: no
• Needs manual QE testing?: yes
• Steps to reproduce for manual QE testing: open a new firefox instance (that lands onto about:welcome) - when prompted to give access to the documents directory, do not allow access. Close firefox and reopen.

expected:
firefox should respect the user's decision to not give access to the docs directory

real:
Firefox reprompts for docs directory access on startup

• Risk associated with taking this patch: low
• Explanation of risk level: disablement of feature on macos
• String changes made/needed?: no
• Is Android affected?: no

Comment 3

[Pulsebot]

https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/9536bdd78e77
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/cc7f287c856a

Comment 4

[Bogdan Maris, Desktop Test Engineering]

I can confirm that Backup/Restore is not enabled by default in Fx151.0.

I was not able to reproduce the prompt issue described in comment 2. I used 151.0b10, selected Don't Allow in the prompt and the autofilled backup in the beckup welcome page was empty (expected). I restarted Firefox with the same profile but the prompt did not reappear. I went to Privacy & Security > Files and Folders and removed Firefox from the list, now I don't get the prompt at all (I don't have Firefox in the Full Disk Access also). Any ideas of where can I remove that permission so that I can get that prompt again?

I will close this as verified since the point of this bug was to disable backup/restore on Mac and I tried on 3 different mac versions (mac13, mac26, mac15) and it is.

Comment 5

[Harshit Sohaney [:hsohaney]]

I restarted Firefox with the same profile but the prompt did not reappear. I went to Privacy & Security > Files and Folders and removed Firefox from the list, now I don't get the prompt at all (I don't have Firefox in the Full Disk Access also). Any ideas of where can I remove that permission so that I can get that prompt again?

it is expected not to show again unless you go to about:welcome OR open about:preferences. Since those are the only times we hit the find backups code.

Comment 6

[Bogdan Maris, Desktop Test Engineering]

(In reply to Harshit Sohaney [:hsohaney] from comment #5)

it is expected not to show again unless you go to about:welcome OR open about:preferences. Since those are the only times we hit the find backups code.

Yeah, that was what I tried, unfortunately it did not appear for me again. I'll dig a bit to see if apples stores those permissions somewhere else or something.