435784 - Setting browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to 80 makes disappearing / invisible tabs!

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, defect)

Description

[Yugo Nakai]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14

browser.tabs.tabMinWidth

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set browser.tabs.tabMinWidth = 80 (default is 100).
2. Open many tabs in one window, enough to make the tabs get narrower, and add twice again more.  In total, maybe 20 tabs in a 1400 pixel wide screen.  
3. Optionally, close a tab (not the first tab) and notice how it leaves an open gap in the tab bar.
Actual Results:  
Once a certain number of tabs is reached, new tabs become "invisible" or inaccessible - they do not show up on the tab bar. (Even if you close enough tabs to get down to a number which would normally fit on the tab bar without shrinkage.)  They do not show up in the drop-down list on the right side.  You may be able to cycle through to them using Cmd-Tab, but even if you activate an invisible tab, the page is not displayed in the main content area (just a blank gray space) and there is no URI in the Location bar.

Also, if you close a middle tab once this error has occurred, a "gap" remains in the tab bar, like the smile of someone missing a tooth.

Expected Results:  
The browser.tabs.tabMinWidth should behave as expected:

1) As more tabs are opened than would fit on the tab bar, tabs should gracefully get narrowed down to the browser.tabs.tabMinWidth value.

2) Once more tabs open than would fit (even at browser.tabs.tabMinWidth), the overflow should be accessible using side scrolling and the drop down menu.

3) Tabs shouldn't disappear.

4) There shouldn't be gaps left in the tab bar.

5) Page content should display properly.

6) The URI should be displayed in the Location bar.

This problem disappeared once I reset browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to its default value (100), even without restarting the browser.

Granted, not a lot of casual users will change the browser.tabs.tabMinWidth value, but I came across it because LifeHacker made it one of their top 10 Firefox hacks.

Comment 1

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Do you have any extensions installed?

Comment 2

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was reported using Firefox 3.0 or older, which is no longer supported. The bug has also not been changed in over 500 days and is still in UNCO.
Reporter, please retest this bug in Firefox 3.6.10 or later using a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/managing+profiles. If you still see this problem, please update the bug. If you no longer see the bug, please set the resolution to RESOLVED, WORKSFORME.

This is a mass search of unconfirmed bugs that have no activity on them, so if you feel a bug was marked in error, just remove the CLOSEME comment in the whiteboard within the next month.

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.