449456 - homepage pref "browser.startup.homepage" has no effect

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Giang Vu]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080702 Firefox/2.0.0.16
Build Identifier: "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4v; en-US; rv:1.8.1.8) Gecko/20071019 Firefox/2.0.0.8

Upon first startup of Fikrefox 2.0.0.15 and Firefox3 the browser does not go to the correct home page url. The pref setting for home page is set in users prefs.js

user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.google.com/");

However the browser defaults to the home url in lib/browserconfig.properties instead and will never go to the url in "browser.startup.homepage" unless it is set by the firefox-->tools-->options-->HomePage. After manually setting it there then browser will then go to the home page. I have done that and ran a diff against the files and cannot find any changes in the pref files after manually setting the home page. This problem/bug first appeard in Firefox 2.0.0.15 and I have also noticed Firefox 3.0 has this issue. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install firefox 2.0.0.15 or Firefox 3.0 with an autoconfig.js setting the users "browser.startup.homepage setting. This should set the users prefs.js upon first startup without a ~/.mozilla directory.

2. Launch firefox, verify that it puts the home directory tab in the default url and not the one set by autoconfig.js.

3. Use tools-->options-->home-page to set the home directory. Actually autoconfig.js will set the new home url there already. However the browser will not go there when user clicks the homepage button and instead goes to orig default home page.

4. Reset the home page under options-->tools--home-page and the browser will then to to that url after it is manually reset using the gui.

Comment 1

[Pei Hu]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008072809 Firefox/3.0.1

I don't know how to use autoconfig.js, but even I use GUI to change the homepage, there is a problem:
(1) The textbox used for show the homepage value is gray, after I change the homepage using buttons, the value in the textbox does not change, but "browser.startup.homepage" in pref.js is changed.
(2) After Step (1), restart the Firefox, the homepage is not the newly set, but the original one.

Comment 2

[xin.sun]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11;U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1)Gecko/2008092207
Firefox/3.0.1
1.In the autoconfig.js, "browser.startup.homepage" was set as 
 defaultPref("brower.startup.homepage","resource:/browserconfig.properties","http://sunweb.central/");
 But there was no "brower.startup.homepage" set in the prefs.js.So if you started firfox, Firefox will go to the default mozilla official URl.

2.Then I manually set the "brower.startup.homepage" in the prefs.js.Then I started the Firefox.And Firefox went to the url which set in the prefs.js now.

3.I noticed that the autoconfig.js was a read only file. So I can't modify the 
"brower.startup.homepage".

Comment 3

[walkAbout]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2) Gecko/20081201 Firefox/3.1b2 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Upgraded to FF 3.1b2 and have a set of tabs as startup homepage. Firefox opens like set to "show a blank page". The entries are in prefs.js and if I use the homepage button in the navigation toolbar I get all my tabs opend.

Comment 4

[walkAbout]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b2) Gecko/20081201
> Firefox/3.1b2 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
> 
> Upgraded to FF 3.1b2 and have a set of tabs as startup homepage. Firefox opens
> like set to "show a blank page". The entries are in prefs.js and if I use the
> homepage button in the navigation toolbar I get all my tabs opend.

Diabled extension favicon picker 3 and the tabs open again on startup. Have an other strange behavior then, but I use a lot of not FF3.1-ready extensions. Will wait for updates now.

Comment 5

[Michael Kincaid]

Possibly duplicates bug 272970. Firefox 3.6.6 still does this. When browser.startup.homepage is set in an systemwide autoconfig/MCD .js file (as included by "general.config.filename" in defaults/pref/local-settings.js), that setting is ignored. You actually get a blank page until you set the homepage manually in the GUI (which is of course user-specific), and even then it has to be different from what you have set in your autoconfig file; if it's exactly the same, you will get sent back to the Mozilla-provided start page. (This is similar to bug 451161, i.e. when the user sets a preference equivalent to something Mozilla thinks is or was a default, the user preference is lost.)

Comment 6

[Pete]

This is also happening in FireFox 5.0.1,
I have created a prefs.js file with
pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://myurl.com/");
and put it into the default/profile folder.
Launching FireFox brings you to about:home in the url bar and not http://myurl.com/ clicking on home button brings you to about:home.
The options home page field is blank. 
In about:config, browser.startup.homepage is set to http://myurl.com/
if i double click on this field and hit enter, my home page will then bet set to http://myurl.com/

Comment 7

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I've tested this in the latest Firefox and it is working for me.

To be clear, browser.startup.homepage MUST be set as pref() on the autoconfig.

Neither lockPref or defaultPref will work.

Can you please retest?

Comment 8

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I've verified that this works now.

You can set 

pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://mike.kaply.com");

In a JS file in defaults\pref.

I know this didn't used to work, so I'm happy.

The only case that doesn't work is setting defaultPref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.yahoo.com"); 

in an autoconfig. I'm going to open a separate bug for that.

In addition, if you set the homepage this way, there is an error opening preferences. That's a separate bug as well.