473429 - If Private browsing mode is started from a window-less state, stop PB mode should not restore the last session

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 480874

(Firefox :: Private Browsing, defect, P3)

Description

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20090113 Minefield/3.2a1pre ID:20090113020320

With the fix on bug 463582 we can start/stop PB mode in window-less mode. If you start the PB mode in such a manner and stop it again, the former session is restored. Adding the privacy keyword.

Steps:
1. Start Firefox and close all windows
2. Start PB mode via menu or shortcut
3. Stop PB mode via menu or shortcut

After step 3 the former session should not be restored but we do this currently.

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

How is the former session restored?  What session data is still available in this case?

Comment 2

[(no longer active)]

Hmm, I'd imagine that with no windows open, nsISessionStore::getBrowserStart should return an empty session...  Is this not the case, Simon?

Comment 3

[Simon Bünzli]

(In reply to comment #2)
This is mostly bug 382006: After closing all windows, we still restore the last closed window and thus it's part of the browser's state and reported as open for consistency reasons (getBrowserState always returns what would be restored after a restart).

The correct solution would IMO be to behave Mac-like and treat an empty session as such (i.e. just open a blank tab instead of restoring anything and consequently return an empty session state). Feel free to drive that bug through UI-review...

Comment 4

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Ehsan, I've seen some new behavior which could have been regressed by the patch on bug 473860 but also fits into this context. Before I file a new bug lets explain it:

If you close all your windows and start the PB mode two new windows will be opened. One contains the about:privatebrowsing page and the other an empty tab. Same happens when stopping the PB while no window is open. One window will contain the last session while the other one has an empty tab. Shall I file a new bug for this issue?

Comment 5

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Ehsan, I've seen some new behavior which could have been regressed by the patch
> on bug 473860 but also fits into this context. Before I file a new bug lets
> explain it:

Yes, it sounds like a regression from that bug indeed.

> If you close all your windows and start the PB mode two new windows will be
> opened. One contains the about:privatebrowsing page and the other an empty tab.
> Same happens when stopping the PB while no window is open. One window will
> contain the last session while the other one has an empty tab. Shall I file a
> new bug for this issue?

Yes please.  If that bug proves to be similar to this one, we can always mark it as a dupe.  Also, please make sure you test it with the latest nightly because IIRC we landed some possibly related patches a couple of days ago.  Thanks!

Comment 6

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Filed as bug 480854.

Comment 7

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Duping this the wrong way because I've already blocked on the other bug.  Oops.