Closed Bug 777851 Opened 12 years ago Closed 6 years ago

[Tab Utilities 1.1.4] FFb15 lost all open tabs, can't change pages after first one

Categories

(Firefox :: Extension Compatibility, defect)

15 Branch
x86
Windows XP
defect
Not set
critical

Tracking

()

RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: randy.steer, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/536.11 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/20.0.1132.57 Safari/536.11

Steps to reproduce:

I updated from Beta 14 to Beta 15.  At the time, I had 204 open tabs, which I expected to re-open after FF restarted.


Actual results:

1.  After FF restarted, I had 204 EMPTY "New Tab"s.  Everything I was working on for the week, lost.  Xmarks saved my history and bookmarks, and HAD saved my open tabs, but the restart caused my open tabs in Xmarks to be set to "none".

2.  The next day (after clicking on the "Close Tab" X 203 times), I realized that after I type an address into the location bar, I can't leave that page.  Typing a new address has no effect -- it reverts to the current address.  Clicking on a bookmark or history entry, also no effect.  This also prevents FF from displaying the add-on page, troubleshooting page, etc. -- anything that acts like a bookmark.

I haven't tested further.  I've been frustrated for the past year or so with the FF dev team's unwillingness to listen to user complaints about design and functionality changes, and this catastrophic failure (more like an early-alpha release than normal FF public-beta) is "the straw that broke the camel's back".  

I downloaded and installed Google Chrome and synced it with Xmarks.  I'm using Chrome now to submit this bug.  I had used FF since version 0.8 (2004) and "Mozilla" before that, but the combination of not listening to users and releasing a beta this unstable means FF may have lost me for good.


Expected results:

The 204 open tabs should have re-opened upon restart, and typing a new page address or clicking on bookmarks/history should open new pages.
Severity: normal → critical
Confirmation & Partial Diagnosis: One of the following add-ons causes the problem:

NoScript
Better Privacy
Firebug
Tab Utilities (not "lite")
Xmarks

I can't diagnose which one because part of the problem is that the conflict prevents Firefox from opening bookmarks, history, or the AddOns page.
The problem is with the Tab Utilities plug-in (ver. 1.1.4) -- something must have changed in FF Beta 15 that affects the "hooks" plugins use to work with tabs.
Do any of the problems occur with the add-on disabled?
Component: Untriaged → Extension Compatibility
Virgil - As far as I can tell, with the Tab Utilities 1.1.4 installed but DISABLED, none of the problems have recurred.  I left a comment on the Tab Utilities page, but it's not clear how actively the add-on is maintained.

On the other hand, unless there's a very good reason for changes, the tab-handling hooks and API should probably be left as they are in FF 14.
Virgil -- Another thought.  The one tab-related change that I am aware of in Beta 15 is that the option (check-box under Tools | Options | Tabs) to have tabs located above or below the address-bar has been removed.  So someone HAS been fooling around with the tab code a bit.  It's possible that the plug-in has been affected by the removal of a "tabs" hook or interface in the Options module.

I would like the check-box back so that I can have the tabs visually more connected to the page (below the address-bar), and I've seen other people complaining about the same thing.  (It IS possible to change the location by using About:Config, but that's a nuisance and many users don't know how to muck about inside the config file -- or aren't willing to take the risk.)
(In reply to Randy Steer from comment #5)
> Virgil -- Another thought.  The one tab-related change that I am aware of in
> Beta 15 is that the option (check-box under Tools | Options | Tabs) to have
> tabs located above or below the address-bar has been removed.  So someone
> HAS been fooling around with the tab code a bit.  It's possible that the
> plug-in has been affected by the removal of a "tabs" hook or interface in
> the Options module.

There are always changes in code between releases, but I'm not sure if this has to do with Firefox. This might be another add-on related issue (add-on which changed default entries and stopped doing that in 15).

Unfortunately, this is a conflict between the add-on and Firefox. There's really not much that can be done here unless the add-on author fixes this problem at his end or points to something stopping him for doing that in the Firefox code.
Summary: FFb15 lost all open tabs, can't change pages after first one → [Tab Utilities 1.1.4] FFb15 lost all open tabs, can't change pages after first one
With WebExtensions being the only valid way of doing extensions in Firefox 57, I don't think this bug is still relevant.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
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