240898 - Switching profile also switches Mozilla to work offline

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Backend, defect)

Description

[Matt Perry]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Build Identifier: 

When switching from one Mozilla profile to another the profile that is being 
switched from will have user_pref("network.online", false); written to 
prefs.js even if the profile is set the be online.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create two mozilla profiles, default and second.  Make sure that the 
browser is set to work online.
2. Switch to second profile.
3. Now check prefs.js in the default profile.  You will find the entry 
user_pref("network.online", false); even though the profile was set to online.
4. Close Mozilla.
5. Restart Mozilla.  The current profile will be set to offline.

Actual Results:  
When switching to a new profile, and then closing and restarting Mozilla, the 
profile will be offline.

Expected Results:  
The profile should have retained the state the user left it in.  In this case 
it should have remained set to online.

Comment 1

[Gregory Russell]

This bug still exists in v. 1.7 (final)

Comment 2

[Carlton Bale]

>> This bug still exists in v. 1.7 (final)

Confirmed.  This is a very prominent bug to make it through several production
releases.  Doesn't anyone in the development team use profiles enough to notice
how annoying this is?

Comment 3

[Tom Schneider]

This bug is DEADLY.  It took me a long time to realize why I could not
get to web sites.  A user may never figure it out and so abandon
mozilla.  I think this should get extremely high priority!

Comment 4

[Lyle Greg Lisle]

Happens on Win98 too.  I just hadn't analyzed what and why.  I'm using the quick
launch and it still messes up.

Comment 5

[Prognathous]

I just tested this on 1.8a3 and it seems that the *newly selected* profile is
switched offline, rather than just the *previous* one.

Prog.

Comment 6

[Carlton Bale]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I just tested this on 1.8a3 and it seems that the *newly selected* profile is
> switched offline, rather than just the *previous* one.
> 
> Prog.

Yes, this is and has been the case all along.  Thanks for pointing out that the
description of the bug didn't fully describe the situation.

Comment 7

[Prognathous]

As per comment #6, changing summary from:
  Switching profile sets previous profile to offline
To:
  Switching profile also switches Mozilla to work offline

Prog.

Comment 8

[Hermann Schwab]

changing from Browser General to Profile Manager, as I assume that´s a better
description. Maybe it is Profile Backend.

Comment 9

[Carlton Bale]

More details on how I always reproduce the bug:
1. Create two mozilla profiles, default and second.  Make sure that the 
browser is set to work online.
2. Start Mozilla (browser view, not profile manager)
3. Go to the "Tools" menu in the browser window, select "Switch Profile"
4. Switch to the other (second) profile in profile manager.
5. Now check prefs.js in the default profile.  You will find the entry 
user_pref("network.online", false); even though the profile was set to online.
6. Close Mozilla.
7. Restart Mozilla browser (not profile manager).  The current profile will be
set to offline.

Comment 10

[Paul Dundas]

Bug 249856 states also a problem for W98 (maybe for other windows platforms?)

Comment 11

[Paul Dundas]

Combined with bug 243277 (Offline: PAC: fails to load at startup when offline,
then never tries again), this is more severe. 

Since a user is (likely to be) offline after changing profiles, 243277 will
prevent the PAC from being loaded, the proxies will not be configured, and the
user will be denied access to all proxied sites. Expert users may guess that the
proxy config URL needs to be reloaded, but others may not. 

Meanwhile, IE "just works" :-/

Comment 12

[James Ross]

Damn this bug is annoying me. Anyway, here's a little thing that seems very
strange to me, but might help anyone who wants to fix this:

When I have selected a new profile, and have multiple tabs open, the
confirmation dialog comes up for closing multiple tabs. At this point, the
statusbar icon has switched from online to offline. However, if I cancel this
dialog, it switches back to online mode.

I wonder if this is it attempting to sever all the pervious profile's
connections or something.

Comment 13

[Dan Mellem]

(In reply to comment #11)
> 
> Meanwhile, IE "just works" :-/

IE doen't have multiple profiles (except per-user) and I've run in to problems
in IE where it just wouldn't load the PAC file until viewing it from the address
bar first. Not that it matters how buggy or bug-free IE is, but it does have
it's own problems.

Comment 14

[Dan Mellem]

*** Bug 249856 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[Dan Mellem]

Verified on Mac OSX v2004092716.
HW -> All
OS -> All

Comment 16

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Proposed patch

Comment 17

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 166714 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch

The idea is to save the online preference when attempting to switch profile or
shut down.

Comment 18

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 166714 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch

thx for fixing this. K&R braces style has mysteriously appeared in this file
:-) - sr = bienvenu if you fix that...

Comment 19

[[e-mail]]

Fix checked in.

Comment 20

[David E. Ross]

*** Bug 271423 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 21

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

*** Bug 269481 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 22

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

*** Bug 270535 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***