631882 - about:blank can't be restored by session restore

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Firefox :: Session Restore, defect)

Description

[B.J. Herbison]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:2.0b12pre) Gecko/20110205 Firefox/4.0b12pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:2.0b12pre) Gecko/20110205 Firefox/4.0b12pre

I have Firefox set to not exit when the last tab is closed, and I typically close all the tabs to get to about:blank and then exit. Sometimes Minefield complains that it can't restore about:blank when I next start it.

This happens only occasionally, but I did not see it before I started using Firefox 4 nightly builds.

A contributing factor might be insufficient time for Firefox to exit before the system exits -- the lack of a disk activity light on this laptop makes it hard for me to tell. Even if that is the case, about:blank should be restorable.

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Reduce Firefox to one tab in one window and visit about:blank.
2.Stop Firefox and reboot computer.
3.Start Firefox.
Actual Results:  
Sometimes a session restore error is shown, embarrassed it can't restore about:blank.

Expected Results:  
Show about:blank.

Comment 1

[B.J. Herbison]

Attachment: Screen shot showing session restore error

Comment 2

[George Carstoiu]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:2.0b12pre) Gecko/20110208 Firefox/4.0b12pre

Once you have selected Restore the about:blank page will be restored normally. The error message is displayed because of a possible abnormal Firefox termination.

The browser acts as it should be. Marking this bug as Invalid.

Comment 3

[B.J. Herbison]

(In reply to comment #2)
> The error message is displayed because of a possible abnormal Firefox
> termination.
> The browser acts as it should be. Marking this bug as Invalid.

I don't believe the browser is acting as it should be, and this is really annoying.

Last night I closed the tabs in one browser window, closed that window, closed the tabs in a second browser window, closed the second browser window, then closed two other programs and then shut down my computer. (Running Ubuntu 10.10.) My system was not busy -- no programs were consuming any significant amount of CPU and all the programs fit in memory. I didn't measure the time between closing the last Minefield window and clicking the "shut down" button on the "really shut down" prompt but it was several seconds.

This morning I was greeted with:
   This is embarrassing...
      Window 1
        about:blank
      Window 2
        about:blank

It could be abnormal termination, but Minefield didn't display any error indication after I closed the first window.

My expectation (as a user) is that if a program window is closed without an error message than the program either died horribly (which it didn't seem to since the other window responded normally) or the program knows it closed the window successfully. This expectation wasn't met last night.

I plan on filing another bug report saying "Firefox should update session information before it stops displaying the window or give an error indication". (I will file that bug on Monday to give the people who read this update a chance to either argue against that bug report or to reopen this bug as that new reformulated complaint.)