544611 - request from external program / via command line parameter open tab in wrong window

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Shell Integration, defect)

Description

[unauffaelligerfakename]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100121 Namoroka/3.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100121 Namoroka/3.6

When opening an URL with multiple windows open, the new tab opens in the wrong window if it had focus before and there haven't been any tabs opened / closed in the window focused after that. I'm not all that sure of how it works, happens often but not all the time. The "workaround" can be tricky, too.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open two firefox windows
2. Use window A; browse, open a tab, do stuff...
3. Click on window B once
4. open a browser tab from an external Program
=> where is it? It's a new tab in window A on another desktop...
5. click on window B, repeat
=> another tab in window A
6. open new tab in window B, enter URL, close tab, repeat
=> new tab opens correctly in window B
Actual Results:  
=> where is it? It's a new tab in window A on another desktop...
5. click on window B, repeat
=> another tab in window A
6. open new tab in window B, enter URL, close tab, repeat
=> new tab opens correctly in window B

Expected Results:  
=> opens in the window that last had focus

This never happened to me with any other (older) version of firefox; it's quite frequent with this version.

Comment 1

[Benjamin Smedberg]

This would be a bug in getMostRecentBrowserWindow, probably: http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/components/nsBrowserContentHandler.js#261

Which calls http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/components/nsBrowserGlue.js#1075

Comment 2

[Jesse Ruderman]

We're thinking of changing the "intended" behavior in bug 560706, btw.

Comment 3

[unauffaelligerfakename]

I now had a firefox window, that opens bookmarks in another firefox window. 

The URL bar of "window A" was inaccessible - when using the bookmark menu of "window A", the bookmarks opened in "window B". Opening Tabs on "window A" did work correctly, but entering an URL was still impossible and the bookmark menu still changed the top tab of "window B" instead. Everything in window B worked as intended.

The strange behaviour disappeared, after I used "window A" to open a new window and closed that new window. Everything fine now, haven't been able to reproduce. 

The way this "felt" reminded me very much on the behaviour I already described in this bug, because of the way I had to work around it and the way it resolved. Sometimes, randomly opening new tabs seemed to solve both problems, but not any more: A new window seemed to do the trick in both cases as far as I can tell by now, though.