829089 - Downloads are apparently removed from history when the last browser window is closed

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Downloads Panel, defect)

Description

[:Paolo Amadini]

When the last browser window is closed, we call the cleanUp method to remove
session downloads from the back-end. In the Library window, we are expected to
continue to see these downloads as history downloads, but sometimes this does
not happen, apparently, and the downloads disappear from the Library.

Steps to reproduce that worked on a trunk build from today:
- Open a new profile
- Save the start page
- Open the Downloads view in the Library
- Close the browser window
  (this works correctly, the download remains in the Library)
- Close the Library
- Reopen the browser with the same profile
- Save the start page
- Open the downloads view
- Close the browser window
  (this does not work, the most recent download disappears)

Comment 1

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

I couldn't reproduce this at all on Mac, no matter how I tried.

Questions:
1) Is this reliably reproducible?
2) When it happens, do you see the download history item in other history views (e.g. the history sidebar). Actually, because this involves Save This Page, you're likely to see the url anyway (because you've also visited that page). However, if the uri doesn't appear even there, we're facing a quite bad places bug here.
3) Can you reproduce this with "normal" downloads?
4) If so, please check 2) again.

Comment 2

[Marco Bonardo [:mak] (Away Apr 25 - May 5)]

So, while strange and maybe unexpected this is expected behavior.

What I think it happens:
First time you open the browser on a new profile you get 2 tabs: welcome page and about:home page.  I think you are saving the welcome page that lives on mozilla.org server.

The second time you open the browser on the same profile you just get one tab: about:home. Since later you say "the most recent download disappears", I suppose you are not opening again the mozilla.org page, instead you are saving about:home.

And here is the fact, about:home is a chrome: url, Places doesn't store history of chrome urls... so when we clean downloads, the old page survives cause it is a remote page with history, the most recent page (about:home) doesn't survive cause it doesn't have any history. The view is reacting properly since removing a download that doesn't have history should remove it from the view.