583062 - Restore videos to playback state

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Session Restore, enhancement)

Description

[Aaron Sloman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8

One of the great benefits of firefox is that multiple tabs can form an extension of my memory over long periods, including across rebooting, crashes, etc. because FF allows me to get back all the pages I had previously left in tabs. But if any of them have videos FF starts playing the videos after session restore, instead of returning to the exact state it was in before being shut down.

This can be very annoying. Even if it is only one video, searching for the tab that is the source of the sound can be a pain if I have several windows open each with several tabs. (In meeting this can be annoying to others also.)

Maybe this is connected with the need for an option to restart firefox with just the pages as they were before it was shutdown without automatically reloading all of them. If I move from one tab to another the second tab is not re-loaded and that's good. Likewise going from one window to another. Restoring a session should behave the same way -- or at least that should be an option for those who want it. (Apologies if there is such an option. I have not found it.)

I have experienced this only on linux (various versions of firefox on various versions of Fedora). I don't know if it is also a problem on windows, etc. If not the linux behaviour is presumably a bug. If all behave as I have described, it is a design flaw.

If some people want the pages to be reloaded, videos restarted, etc. then instead of one 'Restore' button there should be two, one labelled 'Restore and reload all pages' the other labelled 'Restore previous state without reloading pages'. Also the restore button(s)shoould be bigger than the restart button, since hitting the restart button by accident can lose work, whereas hitting restore by accident will merely waste a bit of time.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a few you-tube videos (with sound) in different tabs.
2. Kill firefox.
3. restart firefox and choose restore session.
Actual Results:  
Videos start playing, with sound, even if they are in hidden tabs.

Expected Results:  
No video should restart, *especially* if it was previously paused.

Alternatively there could be two restart buttons offering different behaviours.

I don't use any fancy themes. The only plugin that is relevant as far as I know is flash. I have not tried with videos that require other plugins.

Comment 1

[u279076]

(In reply to comment #0)

Thanks for filing this very detailed bug.  You've touched on several issues, each of which should reside in their own bug report.  However, let me see if I understand everything before we go ahead breaking it up.

> But if any of them have videos FF starts playing the videos after session
> restore, instead of returning to the exact state it was in before being shut
> down.

Multiple tabs with Youtube videos, all but one paused, single video playing.  Session restore should restore to that video playing and the rest paused.  Is your desire to have this resume where it left off or start from the beginning?

> If some people want the pages to be reloaded, videos restarted, etc. then
> instead of one 'Restore' button there should be two, one labelled 'Restore and
> reload all pages' the other labelled 'Restore previous state without reloading
> pages'. 

The way Session Restore works is it merely remembers the URLs of each open tab along with a minimal set of cached data (ie. form data).  When the session is restored, it opens each of these URLs in a new tab.  The same is done for Undo Close Tab; it reloads the saved URL in a new tab.  This gives the perception of a restored session.  If I understand correctly, you are asking for the ability to restore pages from a cached state (similar to working in Offline mode).  

> Also the restore button(s)shoould be bigger than the restart button,
> since hitting the restart button by accident can lose work, whereas hitting
> restore by accident will merely waste a bit of time.

The "Start New Session" button has recently been removed.  There is now just the Restore button.  To start a new session you just start browsing.  Some changes need to be made to make the language a bit clearer on about:sessionrestore, but does the removal of this button solve this issue for you?

> Alternatively there could be two restart buttons offering different behaviours.

Please describe these "behaviours".

Comment 2

[Aaron Sloman]

Thanks for looking at this and (not unexpectedly) showing up some limitations of my understanding of how Firefox works!

(In reply to comment #1):
> Thanks for filing this very detailed bug.  You've touched on several issues,
> each of which should reside in their own bug report.  However, let me see if I
> understand everything before we go ahead breaking it up.

Yes I did probably lump too many things into one report.
 
> > But if any of them have videos FF starts playing the videos after session
> > restore, instead of returning to the exact state it was in before being shut
> > down.

It occurs to me, on reflection, that I don't ever want the exact state to be restored by default, if that includes playing even one of the videos, or anything that has sound.

I would not mind having FF provide (on request) a list of tabs in which videos/audio files were previously available as long as I don't have to decide immediately which ones I want to restart. That decision often needs to be delayed until I am again working alone.

> Multiple tabs with Youtube videos, all but one paused, single video playing. 
> Session restore should restore to that video playing and the rest paused.  Is
> your desire to have this resume where it left off or start from the beginning?

Having thought a bit more, I would prefer not to have it ever start playing anything on restart, unless I specifically ask for it.

I could be in a very different context when the machine restarts after a crash or rapid shut down. E.g. I could shut down a laptop computer at home, then much later start it up when I am in the middle of a meeting, or conference. Having a string quartet, or a suspended lecture, immediately start playing in the new context could be very annoying. (It has happened to me more than once.)

Or I could shut down my office desktop machine in a hurry, and the next time I come in I may have a visitor with me to whom I want to demonstrate something, without being required first to decide whether I want to go on listening to something that was being played previously. (It could be private.)

So, if I start up the machine, and restore firefox, I don't want it immediately to resume whatever it was playing when I shut it down, so that I have to locate the tab and stop it.

I know some people (e.g. my wife) hardly make any use of tabs, whereas I use them as part of my memory for unfinished tasks -- and I typically have too many saved to want to have to trawl through  on start up looking for ones that might have been producing sounds, to prevent them restarted. I usually want the pages restored, but without playing embedded video or audio, so that I can go back to them when I am ready, which could be on another day.

When I restore firefox it is rarely the case that I immediately want to hear or see the rest of what I was last listening to or watching.

> > If some people want the pages to be reloaded, videos restarted, etc. then
> > instead of one 'Restore' button there should be two, one labelled 'Restore and
> > reload all pages' the other labelled 'Restore previous state without reloading
> > pages'. 
> 
> The way Session Restore works is it merely remembers the URLs of each open tab
> along with a minimal set of cached data (ie. form data).  When the session is
> restored, it opens each of these URLs in a new tab.  The same is done for Undo
> Close Tab; it reloads the saved URL in a new tab.  This gives the perception of
> a restored session.  If I understand correctly, you are asking for the ability
> to restore pages from a cached state (similar to working in Offline mode).  

I think that should be the default for videos, voice and music. I wonder if anyone has done research on the proportion of times users want FF to continue playing things immediately on restart after a crash or hasty shut down. I suspect that option would rarely be the favoured one.

> > Also the restore button(s)shoould be bigger than the restart button,
> > since hitting the restart button by accident can lose work, whereas hitting
> > restore by accident will merely waste a bit of time.
> 
> The "Start New Session" button has recently been removed.  There is now just
> the Restore button.  To start a new session you just start browsing.

That sounds like an improvement. I am still using V 3.6.7.

> Some
> changes need to be made to make the language a bit clearer on
> about:sessionrestore, but does the removal of this button solve this issue for
> you?

I sounds as if it does.

> > Alternatively there could be two restart buttons offering different behaviours.
> 
> Please describe these "behaviours".

I was thinking of an option (a) to restart FF and resume everything that was previously being played (at the time of a crash or shutdown), or (b) to restart FF including the web pages with the "start" buttons available, but nothing actually playing.

For pages with no start button I suppose that means letting the user refresh the page to restart.

I hope that's a bit clearer than my original.

I have just realised that all my preferences relating to restarting Firefox after a crash or enforced shutdown would also apply to restarting after hibernate (I use linux with software-suspend 2 = tuxonice.)

But I suppose it is difficult for firefox to take any specific action after hibernate and resume, since everything should then be in the same state as before. If that's right, then there is no alternative for someone like me except stopping firefox before hibernating?

That's not as bad as it used to be before firefox was able to remember its previous state and restore it later.

Thanks for your efforts. I hope I have not made things muddier.

Comment 3

[Aaron Sloman]

I have just realised things are worse than I described. The problem of restarting applies also to completed downloads. I had to kill firefox a few minutes  ago because a nasty attachment in an email message grabbed control when I looked at it, and everything froze.

When I restarted firefox (minus the tab with the email message) I found that not only a few videos I had previously watched started playing simultaneously (though out of sight because the tabs were hidden, but that did not suppress the sound), but also a previously completed download of a large iso file restarted.

So the problem is more general than I had realised. 

I had not removed the download page after completion (I had previously fetched the latest version of gparted-live-0.6.2-2.iso from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/)

Comment 4

[Teodosia Pop]

(In reply to comment #3)
> When I restarted firefox (minus the tab with the email message) I found that
> not only a few videos I had previously watched started playing simultaneously
> (though out of sight because the tabs were hidden, but that did not suppress
> the sound), but also a previously completed download of a large iso file
> restarted.

The fact that session restore does not resume download is a known issue, as seen in bug 585822 .

Comment 5

[Teodosia Pop]

Marking this as an enhancement, since the session restore works as expected.

Comment 6

[Josh Triplett]

Marking as confirmed; restoring a session should restore the play/paused state and position of any audio or video.