374669 - Going back to eBay search results loses the scroll position

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: DOM: Navigation, defect)

Description

[Claud]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2) Gecko/20070219 Firefox/2.0.0.2

If, when scrolling thru a list of items, an item is selected and it's page comes up and then a return to the list is performed, the list does not return to the original position. The return is always 4 or more lines lower than the original point. The lower in a list the selection was made from, the more lines displaced - up to a full page once.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Get a list of selectable items to scroll thru.
2. Scroll down a few lines or more and select an item.
3. Return to the starting list.
Actual Results:  
The screen returns to 4 or more lines lower than the starting point. The lower in the list before the selection was made, the lower down the return point.

Expected Results:  
Should return to the exact position the screen was in before the selection was performed.

Performed this operation with Netscape and Windows browser with perfect returns. Noticed this problem with last 2 versions of Firefox (which is all I have used).

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

At step 3, are you using the browser's back button or are you using an eBay feature?

Comment 2

[Claud]

(In reply to comment #1)
> At step 3, are you using the browser's back button or are you using an eBay
> feature?
> 
Am using the back button.

Comment 4

[Thomas Bertels]

I forgot to say here that this bug is JavaScript related.

Comment 5

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

What does "JavaScript related" mean? How is it related to JavaScript?

Comment 6

[Thomas Bertels]

I mean that the problem disappear when JavaScript is disabled.
But I just found that disabling Adblock Plus also does the trick.
So the question is : does the reporter use Adblock (Plus) ?

Comment 7

[pvw]

This problem also occurs in Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Mac OS X 10.4.9

Comment 8

[Thomas Bertels]

pvw> Do you use Adblock (Plus) or any ad blocker (do you see the ads on the top of the page) ?

Comment 9

[Claud]

(In reply to comment #8)
> pvw> Do you use Adblock (Plus) or any ad blocker (do you see the ads on the top
> of the page) ?
> 

I am not using any ad blocker. I didn't even know that one existed.

Comment 10

[pvw]

I disabled adblock. This had no effect.
Disabling javascript fixes the problem but then not all ebay columns are displayed. 
This occurs on my mac and windows box (XP) 

Comment 12

[(mostly gone) XtC4UaLL [:xtc4uall]]

hmm, this is WFM using:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070515 Firefox/2.0.0.4 ID:2007051502
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a6pre) Gecko/20070626 ID:2007062604

i tried to repro several times clicking on items in a search result and hitting the back button ...

Comment 13

[Claud]

Don't know what has been going on with this problem but want you guys to know that after the last couple of updates, the problem has worsened. Going back to a previous screen was getting absolutely unpredictable as to where I would wind up. It got so bad that I reinstalled version 2.0.0.1 to get back to a half way predictable return.

Comment 15

[Jonathan Payne]

OK - I just turned off JavaScript and it made no difference on my my.yahoo.com home page, where I have seen this problem ever since JUST BEFORE the original 3.0 release: every time I click on an article and go back, I end up at the top of the page.

I will just vent by saying, Give me a break. If the back button does not work you can't even call it a browser anymore. And this has been going on for years.

However, with Javascript turned off, I clicked on a link and it changed my "http://my.yahoo.com/" url to "http://my.yahoo.com/#", which caused the back button to work just fine even after I turned JavaScript back on. What would happen is I'd press the back button, the page would display, then it would pop down to the location where it was before I followed the link in the first place.

So the trailing "#" in the URL causes this bad behavior to go away completely.

Meanwhile, in Safari, the web page goes back to the old position without any weird delay at the top of the page until the whole thing is rendered. Much nicer.

If you cannot get the basics right it's going to be game over for firefox. This seems like a really simple bug: remember the scroll position of the window in the history, and restore after you press the back button. How hard can that be? It clearly works if there's a "#" in the URL so the code to restore the position is just NOT being called for some reason. Sort that out and problem solved.

Comment 16

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Jonathan, it doesn't sound like you're seeing this bug.  The very fact that this bug is affected by whether JavaScript is turned on and what you're seeing is not should have been a strong indicator.

I'd really appreciate it if you'd file a bug on your problem with steps to reproduce.  I'd also appreciate you testing a beta of Firefox 3.5, since a long-standing bug with scroll position restoration is present in Firefox 3.0.x but fixed in 3.5.

> How hard can that be?

I take it you've never tried implementing a web browser session history....  It's a lot harder than it seems at first glance.

> It clearly works if there's a "#" in the URL so the code to restore the
> position is just NOT being called for some reason.

Indeed; that's why I'd love a bug report with clear steps to reproduce that's separate from this (different) bug.

Comment 17

[Jonathan Payne]

I saw other comments which said that it was not effected by JavaScript being turned on or off, so I thought that I would chime in and say that it is true that it is not caused by JavaScript (or AdBlock for that matter). But my observation that I probably was not clear on is that a side-effect of turning off JavaScript and then clicking on one of the links (on the my yahoo site) is that the URL changed to having the "#" at the end of it, because that's how Yahoo does its JavaScript.

So it gave the impression that the problem was affected by JavaScript being turned off, BUT in my case it was only because with JavaScript off the URL changed to the "#" at the end. Once I erased the "#" from the URL the problem persisted.

I implemented web browser session history in the original HotJava alpha 15 years ago. My guess is the browser world was a simpler place back then ;-) However, this is basic functionality that must work in a browser and I have always felt that this years old bug was WAY more important than ... apparently a lot of other people.

Good luck.

PS: I already downloaded 3.5 a while back and it had the same bug. I uninstalled it because firebug didn't work yet. I will try again in case I am misremembering.

Comment 18

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Jonathan, I'd still appreciate that bug report on your issue with specific steps to reproduce.

Comment 19

[Jonathan Payne]

I just tried to find Firefox 3.5 and I cannot. The best I can do is firefox 3.1 beta 3.

Do reproduce this problem, just go to my.yahoo.com, scroll down a bit, click on one of the stories, you go to another web page, press the back button and you end up at the top of the page instead of where you were before you left.

My.yahoo.com has a setting which causes it to display the stories in a "popup dialog". If it does that, you have to turn off that setting by clicking on the "More Options" button near the top of the page, and selecting "My Yahoo! Reader" and turning that OFF.

If you have a generic my.yahoo.com account (that is, you are not bothering to login) it still happily does not work, so this should be very easy to reproduce. If you can reproduce it from this text, I will happily file the bug for you.

Comment 20

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Oh, right.  3.1b3 was before the rename and 3.5b4 hasn't shipped yet.  OK.

I just tried the following steps in a current trunk build:

1) Load http://my.yahoo.com/ (no login; just loaded it)
2) Scroll down to the "About Camping" section.
3) Click "Campground Reviews - What's New"
4) Wait for the web page to load.
5) Click back.

The my.yahoo.com page loads and scrolls to the position I was at before I clicked the link.

Comment 21

[Thomas Bertels]

I couldn't reproduce on Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:48.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/48.0 20160817112116

Marking as WORKSFORME.
Feel free to reopen if you can reproduce.