527360 - If set to start up with MailNews only, then after addon-manager restart, the second and further times the Browser is opened (by Ctrl+1, Window→Browser, or the statusbar icon) it is empty

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: Startup & Profiles, defect)

Description

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.1.4) Gecko/20091017 SeaMonkey/2.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.1.4) Gecko/20091017 SeaMonkey/2.0

I start up SM with email only and then only open Browser as needed. So I have only Mail & news checked to start when SeaMonkey2 is opened. If I switch themes whether from Default to Modern or third party themes; if I go to Browser The browser controls are there but no web page content no URL shown in location bar. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Preferences set to open Mail & new only at startup
2. switch from default theme to Modern or any third party theme
3. restart from the Addon's window
4. go to Browser Window 
Actual Results:  
Receive Browser Controls with Blank window and no URL in location bar.
(in 1.1.8 and lower this problem did not occur)

Expected Results:  
Should immediately go to home page or page used for start up and URL should be shown in Location bar.

Macintosh PowerBook 17" 1.67GB Processor, 2GB RAM, OSX.4.11, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 Graphics Card as Supplied by Apple.

Note if you have Browser window open first. (browser set to open only) or both Browser and Mail & news set then problem does not appear.

I read mail & news mostly then switch to browser as needed. Therefore it affects me and other that work like I do.

Comment 1

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Phillip,

What are your new window preferences set to? You'll find them under Preferences --> Browser (the drop-down at the top)

Comment 2

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

(if you restart and mailNews opens, then open a browser window "manually", SeaMonkey is already running so the new browser window preference is honored)

Comment 3

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

<quote>(if you restart and MailNews opens, then open a browser window "manually",
SeaMonkey is already running so the new browser window preference is honored)</unquote> (I know this is not proper way 
It supposed to be

Preference > Browser > Homepage.

In my case my Homepage is my ISP's website.


Here the kicker: After the restart from the add-ons Theme Window after change see this Blank page when I first go to Browser. So I click on Home. It goes to my ISP's Homepage. I can Restart as many times as I wish  and from email go to Browser blank page. 

Now if I go to preferences check Browser and Mail & News (in Appearance). Now restart. Now Home page shows No blank window, no missing URL. Now I can go back to appearance uncheck browser, restart SeaMonkey and click on browser from Window menu and Home page comes  it sticks. Until I switch to another Theme. doesn't make a difference if it is: Default, Modern, or any third Party.  I then have to repeat the above.

Does this help any?

Comment 4

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

I've discovered just now this problem appears as soon as you install an extension as wellI just installed the downloads Manager extension as reccomended by Phillip Chee in SeaMonkey. The blank home page appeared.

Extensions:

Chatzilla

DOM inspector

Forms History Control

Image Zoom

javascript Debugger

QuoteColors 0.3.b2

Themes:

LCARStrek

Default

Modern

Sky Pilot Classic (Sailfish) 
Works and is my favorite but interferes with Quote Colors.

Venerable Modern (Sailfish)

Comment 5

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Yes, it probably happens on any re-start. Maybe you misunderstood me regarding my question in comment #1 (I could also have misunderstood your answer).
What do you have in Preferences --> Browser: "Display on New Window"?

Comment 6

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

Display on Browser Startup

Home Page

If I had a way to upload a screen shot I would make a PNG Screen shot and show you.

Comment 7

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

If you click on the arrows at the right in the drop-down list (where it says "Browser Startup"), you can choose "New Window". What are the settings then?

Comment 8

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

(In reply to comment #6) 
> If I had a way to upload a screen shot I would make a PNG Screen shot and show
> you.

Click on the "Add an attachment" link (just above your initial report) to upload a screenshot.

Comment 9

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

Attachment: Screen Shot of SeaMonkey > Preferences> Browser Window

per request for more Details about settings of Browser Preference Window I've attached a PNG image

Comment 10

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

I have uploaded Screen shot. Note I have my ISP home page as my home page and I did click the button to use current page (I assume this sets the page as the default.)

Note I am using Modern as my theme.

Comment 11

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Please see comment #7. Your screenshot shows that you have your browser startup pref set to your homepage, but I was asking about what your preferences for opening a new browser window is set to.

Comment 12

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

Attachment: Browser New Window

Found the new window setting. Shows same as Home Page and homepage is same as before  my ISP's Home page

Comment 13

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

Attachment: Browser New Window (taken 3/21/2010)

latest screen of Browser window in SM2 2.0.3 still doing same thing though not quite as often.

Comment 14

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

Phillip, could this be a related to bug 486696 which was fixed in SeaMonkey 2.0.4 or do you still see this with SeaMonkey 2.0.4?

Comment 15

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

Still show up on occasion with 2.0.4 in fact I've had the very problem today.

Comment 16

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

(In reply to comment #12)
> Created an attachment (id=411762) [details]
> Browser New Window
> 
> Found the new window setting. Shows same as Home Page and homepage is same as
> before  my ISP's Home page

No it's not. You forgot the double slashes which makes it an invalid URL. Please enter the same URL as with Browser Start and try again.

Comment 17

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

Attachment: View of Browser setting for home page 5/23/2010

This is set by the command *Use Current Page* not by me

Comment 18

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

As you can see in the new attachment, SeaMonkey is setting the link this way not me

My ISP's Home page is http://www.kimbanet.com

But when you view the page in the window that shows the URL its:

http://www.kimbanet.com/

Comment 19

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

I've  switched to new window in this png (can find no way to remove old attachments).
need to attach new image showing new page.

Comment 20

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

(In reply to comment #19)
> (can find no way to remove old attachments).

Attachments cannot be removed, only obsoleted (from the page accessible through the Details link of an attachment, or when uploading a new attachment).

> need to attach new image showing new page.

I guess the whole issue might be fixed if you correct the URL you have when "Display on" is "New Window". Please check that first.

Comment 21

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

Its identically the same both in new window and when browser opens.
http://www.kimbanet.com/

Comment 22

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

In fact I erased what was on there and chose use current page. doesn't make any difference. for some reason it not committed to preference or SM preferences looses track. when something happens. The same thing happens if say SM has to be force quit. it is a defect.

Comment 23

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

(In reply to comment #21)
> Its identically the same both in new window and when browser opens.

Sorry, I made some wrong assumptions. In fact there is only one Home Page URL, irrespective of whether you set that Home page for any of Browser Startup, New Window or New Tab. I was just confused that in one of your screen shots the URL in the box was invalid (missing the double slash).

Still I cannot reproduce this so I cannot confirm it.

Out of curiosity, does setting "Display on New Tab" to "Home page" as well change anything regarding this problem?

Comment 24

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

doesn't make a difference. whether Display on new Tab its still listed the same way.  changing to Browser open, new window or new tab

The one graphic I typed wrong and upload before realized I had it typed wrong.

Comment 25

[Philip Chee]

Phillip can you check if the problem still occurs in SeaMonkey 2.1b3? 2.1 final will be out within a week.

Comment 26

[therube]

Confirmed.


Steps to Reproduce:
0. new profile
- start SeaMonkey, Default theme is the default
1. Preferences | Appearance, set to open Mail & Newsgroups only at startup
- Quit
- restart SeaMonkey
[should open Mail & Newsgroups window only]
<enter some data to get past the New Account Setup Wizard (bogus data works)>
[Tools | Add-on Manager -> Themes]
2. switch from default theme to Modern
3. restart from the Addon's window
4. go to Browser Window (Ctrl+1)

Actual Results:  

Browser window loads, home page displays, as does the expected URL displays in the location bar.

Up to that point, WFM.

5. close browser window
- Mail & Newsgroups window remains open.
6. go to Browser Window (Ctrl+1)

Actual Results:

Browser window loads, page is blank, no URL displays in the location bar.

Repeat steps 5. - 6., closing the browser window & reopen browser window with the same results.



Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14


I think I've got those steps laid out correctly.
Not at a position at the moment to test SeaMonkey 2.1.

(Ctrl+1 or Ctrl+N will work equally well.)

Comment 27

[therube]

Confirmed the condition also exists in SeaMonkey 2.1.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20110511 Firefox/4.0.1 SeaMonkey/2.1

Comment 28

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

I can reproduce this bug on Linux with all three of the following:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:2.0.2pre) Gecko/20110517 Firefox/4.0.2pre SeaMonkey/2.1.1pre
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:6.0a1) Gecko/20110417 Firefox/6.0a1 SeaMonkey/2.2a1pre

the first one of which still has the "old" addons manager.

I notice that notwithstanding their title, all attachments (except the obsolete one which had an invalid URL) are for "At Browser Startup" which is irrelevant.

At step 1 of comment #26, before quitting, I check that under "Edit → Preferences → Browser", _both_ "Browser Startup" and "New Window" (per the rolldown at top) are set to open "Home Page" and that that home page is the default, http://www.seamonkey-project.org/start/

At step 3, before the browser closes and reopens, in Sm 2.1 and later (new EM) there is a popup, "SeaMonkey will attempt to restore your windows and tabs when it restarts", I click the rightmost button, "Restart Now" (the other one is "Restart Later").

Still at step 3, after the above, all windows close then only the mailer reopens.

After step 6 I also get an empty browser. There is a hitch, though:
- at step 5, if only one tab is open (the addons manager), there is a "File → Close" menu with a Ctrl+W hotkey; clicking it closes the browser window and going back to the browser gives an empty tab.
- If two or more tabs are open (e.g. the "browser startup" tab and the addons manager), this "Close" menuitem is replaced by three others: "Close Tab", "Close Other Tabs", "Close Window". In that case, if I select "Close Window", a dialog comes up, asking if I want to save my tabs for next startup. If I answer "Quit", then reopen the browser, it is empty; but if I answer "Save and Quit", then reopen the browser, I get the same tabs I had before.

I'm leaving this at "Startup and Profiles" though maybe it belongs in "Toolkit::Add-ons Manager": an addons-manager restart is required, if I close the app and then re-launch it, steps 5 and 6 of comment #26 do not open an empty browser.

Even if it belongs in Toolkit, the bug can of course not be reproduced in Firefox, not even after installing a second (heavyweight) theme, since it is not possible to start or restart Firefox without a Browser window. In addition the bug is present with both the "old" (rv:1.9.1.x) and "new" (rv:2.0x and later) addon managers.

Editing the Summary in the hope of describing the problem more clearly.

Comment 29

[[e-mail]]

I tested on a system with the following settings:
1. When SeaMonkey starts up, load Composer only
2. On browser startup, open home page
3. On new window or tab, leave blank
I then opened the addons manager in a tab and switched theme. SeaMonkey started with only Composer, but then when I opened a navigator window it restored the tabs (including the addons manager) that I had open when I restarted.

Comment 30

[[e-mail]]

Also, if you close the last browser window, and it has multiple tabs open, then you will be prompted to "Save and Quit" (I'm not sure whether we can tell if we're really quitting or not at this point) and if you just "Quit" then you'll just get your usual Browser Startup preference when you open a new window.

Comment 31

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

In reply to comment #29 and #30
therube and I tested it with only MailNews at startup, and on 2nd "Window → Browser" (*not* File → New → Browser Window) we see an empty page, even though the preferences for both "browser startup" and "new window" are "Home page" and the home page in question is a nonempty HTML page. In the case described by comment #29, you cannot tell whether at comment #30 the page is blank because you asked to, or blank because of the bug (which says it will be blank even if you asked for something else).

Comment 32

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #31)
> therube and I tested it with only MailNews at startup, and on 2nd "Window →
> Browser" (*not* File → New → Browser Window) we see an empty page
OK, let me see if I've understood the STR correctly:
1. Set action on browser startup and new window to be home page
2. Set SeaMonkey to open mail on startup
3. Start SeaMonkey
4. Window - Browser
5. Open the Add-ons Manager
6. Change the theme
7. Restart SeaMonkey
8. Window - Browser
9. Window - Browser
In that case, I still get the home page in my (second) browser window.

Comment 33

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

Originally as I posted to begin with:
1 set to open Mail&News
2 set Browser to open to desired Home page (in my case my ISP's home Page).
3 quit SeaMonkey (optional)
4 go to add on menu
5 install theme. 
6 restart for them to change
7 opens to blank page.
8 if try aagin some times will go to desired Page, Mostly Blank
9 If still show completely Blank go To preferences and look to set what is set as Home page. Nothing there. retype  get out of preference go to browser shows home page.

an alternative:

10 If Blank page shows type in home page in location bar , go to the link.
11 Go to preferences to set home page and click on user current page as Home

try will stick until next theme change or extension

Comment 34

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #32)
> (In reply to comment #31)
> > therube and I tested it with only MailNews at startup, and on 2nd "Window →
> > Browser" (*not* File → New → Browser Window) we see an empty page
> OK, let me see if I've understood the STR correctly:
> 1. Set action on browser startup and new window to be home page
> 2. Set SeaMonkey to open mail on startup

and not browser

> 3. Start SeaMonkey
> 4. Window - Browser
> 5. Open the Add-ons Manager
> 6. Change the theme
> 7. Restart SeaMonkey

...from the "Restart" link or button in the addons manager or the doorhanger

> 8. Window - Browser

8bis. Close the Browser window

> 9. Window - Browser
> In that case, I still get the home page in my (second) browser window.

hm

Comment 35

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #34)
> 8bis. Close the Browser window
Aha, that's the step I was missing!

1. Set SM to not open the browser at startup
2. Open Addons Manager
3. Change Theme
4. Restart
5. Open Browser
6. Close Browser
7. Open Browser

At step 5, the Addons Manager opens, because the restart automatically saved the session. But at step 7, nothing opens, because the browser still thinks that there's a session to restore, but there isn't.

Misak: this boils down to the fact that nsISessionStartup's doRestore method returns true even after the restore has taken place.

Comment 36

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Proposed patch

This was the easiest way I could work out to reset the startup state.

Comment 37

[Misak Khachatryan]

Comment on attachment 535045 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch

Review of attachment 535045 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Comment 38

[Philip Chee]

Hmm. Firefox does it slightly differently in Bug 589441 (attachment 504778 [details] [diff] [review])

Comment 39

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Based on bug 589441

Still moving the reset of the session type, of course. I also found what seems to be a typo in nsSessionStore.js - I hope it isn't important ;-)

Comment 40

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

(In reply to comment #38)
> Hmm. Firefox does it slightly differently in Bug 589441 (attachment 504778 [details] [diff] [review]
> [details] [review])

I am not surprised. Since SeaMonkey has both the mail News/Reader, and the Browser

But the fact that is it shows up in FireFox as well means its at the very core of the Browser code. Be it SM or FF. And also Its still in FF4 . I haven't tried SM 2.11 yet, because of issues reported in SM newsgroup.

Comment 41

[[e-mail]]

Pushed changesets f75c2d6efad8, fbb55f15d3a0 and 76fcd4bc9dfc to comm-central.

Comment 42

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 535085 [details] [diff] [review]
Based on bug 589441

>+      Services.obs.removeObserver(this, "sessionstore-windows-restored");
>+      // reset session type after restore
>+      this._sessionType = Components.interfaces.nsISessionStartup.NO_SESSION;
>+      // no need in repeating this, since session type won't change
>+      Services.obs.removeObserver(this, "sessionstore-windows-restored");
Oops, how did that happen...

Comment 43

[Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T.]

Can no long comments on this issue have decided not to update beyond the 2.0.x series. Due to new system in place kills many extensions, and in 2.2 kills many Plugins.

However 2.0.19 I still see this issue.