641329 - Sync Ignores services.sync.autoconnect

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 535325

(Firefox :: Sync, defect)

Description

[Jerry Baker]

Firefox: 3.6.15
Sync: 1.7

I have services.sync.autoconnect set to false, but every time I start Firefox I am prompted for my global password and the Sync icon is down on the status bar spinning with a "Connecting" message. This is a regression that I do not recall seeing before 3.6.15.

Comment 1

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

autoconnect is, as I understand it, not a user-facing pref; there are plenty of places in the code that blindly set it to true. Some of Sync's prefs are for internal communication. In other words, Sync doesn't "ignore" the pref, it just doesn't do what you think it does.

This is an old discussion, but it provides some background:

  http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla-labs-weave/browse_thread/thread/12e0cf34df77450f/7e7ac8db6c2739a1

See also Bug 535325, which I think covers what you're trying to do.

It's certainly impossible for you to set this pref once and thereafter use Sync without constantly setting it to false in a user script, as mconnor suggests in that bug... not that that's really a supported scenario!

With regards to your "regression" point: you might have seen something like your desired behavior in the past, and then Sync changed the pref without you knowing, resulting in this bug report.

Note that if you cancel the initial master password prompt, you won't be bothered again until you restart the browser. That's pretty much the user experience we settled on; it's a balance between "why do I keep getting these password popups?!" and "why does Sync never sync?!" -- we've had both viewpoints from master password users, depending on whether they care more about avoiding login prompts or having a sync run more than once every few weeks.

(Lots of MP users keep their MP locked at all times, so Sync would never be able to run unless it prompted. Of course, we can't prompt every five minutes, so we just do it once, about 10 seconds after startup, and thereafter just sit and wait.)

If what you're trying to do is "don't automatically sync on startup", I'm going to dupe this to Bug 535325, which is a WONTFIX.

If what you're trying to do is "sync automatically on startup, but never prompt for my master password", this is likely to just be closed as WONTFIX, because it degrades the experience for most MP users. It's tough to get a better UX than we have right now, no matter how much it sucks, and we don't plan to do any further work on the Sync add-on.

Anyway, please clarify what you're trying to achieve, so we can give a definitive answer and give this bug an accurate title!

Comment 2

[Jerry Baker]

If I'm understanding you correctly it sounds as if you're saying that there are lots of ways this pref gets turned on without my explicitly setting it as such. That is not my issue. The pref still remains set to false and I have not ever used Sync since. It still tries to connect every time I launched Firefox, but only after the update to 3.6.15.

Comment 3

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

The pref should die, we don't intend to support this use-case (Bug 535325), and it's really just cruft at this point.

Comment 4

[Jerry Baker]

Please clarify. Do you mean Mozilla doesn't intend to support electing not to use Sync?

Comment 5

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Please clarify. Do you mean Mozilla doesn't intend to support electing not to
> use Sync?

You don't have to use Sync. But if you do, it's on. Where's the problem?

Comment 6

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Please clarify. Do you mean Mozilla doesn't intend to support electing not to
> use Sync?

That's not it.

You can elect not to use Sync by either not setting it up, or choosing "Deactivate This Device" in Preferences. Choose to use it if you want to.

What we don't support is having Sync enabled and running, but with automatic syncing disabled.

Comment 7

[Jerry Baker]

(In reply to comment #5)
> You don't have to use Sync. But if you do, it's on. Where's the problem?

Because I only want to manually sync when I have a reason to sync. I have bookmarks at work that I have no use for at home and vice versa, but I also have bookmarks that I like to share between the two. It's not obvious that the only way to achieve manual syncing is to disable or uninstall the extension every time you want it turned off.

Comment 8

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

(In reply to comment #7)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > You don't have to use Sync. But if you do, it's on. Where's the problem?
> 
> Because I only want to manually sync when I have a reason to sync. I have
> bookmarks at work that I have no use for at home and vice versa, but I also
> have bookmarks that I like to share between the two. It's not obvious that the
> only way to achieve manual syncing is to disable or uninstall the extension
> every time you want it turned off.

I don't follow why partial sync and manual sync are linked -- when you manually sync, you're syncing *everything*, and I find it hard to believe that you're deleting and restoring chunks of bookmarks by hand to manually effect this!

Any use of Sync's bookmarks feature to achieve partial sharing is very likely to end in tears. Sync assumes that it 'owns' your entire bookmark repository.

Still, I reiterate: Sync is expressly not trying to solve the kind of sophisticated scenarios that you describe. Its controls are very coarse-grained ("yes or no" for each data store, in essence), because its purpose is to seamlessly get "your Firefox" in sync across your various browsers. You're paddling very much against the current: Sync's operation will continue to become less obtrusive, not more.

I recommend that you explore solutions such as Pinboard for storing bookmarks that you don't want synced. Furthermore, if you also don't want your passwords, history etc. to be synced to your work machine -- i.e., you're only concerned with bookmarks -- then it seems that Sync might not be the right tool for you.

Comment 9

[Jerry Baker]

I do like to sync my history, cookies, and passwords. It's the bookmarks that are an issue. I have hundreds upon hundred of bookmarks, so even the pain of syncing them and then restoring work-specific ones at work and the other way around at home is still a net time savings, but that is why I do it very infrequently.

I'm not opposed to Sync doing whatever it does, I'm just saying it's not obvious to the casual user what they're getting themselves into.

Comment 10

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #9)
> I do like to sync my history, cookies, and passwords. It's the bookmarks that
> are an issue. I have hundreds upon hundred of bookmarks, so even the pain of
> syncing them and then restoring work-specific ones at work and the other way
> around at home is still a net time savings, but that is why I do it very
> infrequently.

You might want to choose a different service than Sync for syncing your bookmarks then.

> I'm not opposed to Sync doing whatever it does, I'm just saying it's not
> obvious to the casual user what they're getting themselves into.

I think it's pretty obvious. It syncs all of your stuff. Poking around in about:config on the other hand is highly non-obvious. Like it says, it may void your warranty :)

Comment 11

[Jerry Baker]

Well, it's a little more than that. It syncs all of your stuff ALL OF THE TIME WITHOUT ASKING YOU. That's what's not obvious.