848347 - external links do not always open correctly

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Private Browsing, defect)

Description

[Christian Ascheberg]

I discovered a problem with session restore in combination with per-window private browsing. I think this is somewhat related to bug 829568.

STR:
0. configure Firefox to "show my windows and tabs from last time" and set as default browser
1. start firefox, load some tabs, close firefox (session is stored)
2. click jumplist entry for "new private window"
3. click link in external application

Result:
The session from step 2 will be correctly restored in new non-PB window, but the external link will not be opened.
Clicking the external link again will then correctly load the url in a new tab.

There is another thing to note:
If you now close the non-PB window, while the PB window is still open, the non-PB session will be stored. So if you completely close Firefox, that session will be restored on startup, which is probably intended.
But if you do not close the PB-window, and then after a while click an external link again (or you just open a new non-PB window), no session will be restored, so the previous session will be lost!

Comment 1

[Josh Matthews [:jdm]]

Christian, would you mind filing the second session restore problem as a separate bug? It's different enough that it would be good to track separately.

Comment 2

[Christian Ascheberg]

(In reply to Josh Matthews [:jdm] from comment #1)
> Christian, would you mind filing the second session restore problem as a
> separate bug? It's different enough that it would be good to track
> separately.

Sure, it is now filed as bug 848355.

Comment 3

[Christian Ascheberg]

Attachment: patch v1

This small patch fixes the bug.
The only other effect I noticed is:
If you follow the above STR, but in step 3 open a new (non-PB) window instead of clicking an external link, the new window will restore the previous session and will now also show and focus an empty tab.
My first impression is that this is not necessarily a bad thing. It seems to make Firefox faster because it does not start to actually load a website from the previous session. Furthermore it might be that the user actually wants to see an empty tab when he opens a new window.

Comment 4

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

Comment on attachment 757348 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v1

Review of attachment 757348 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Looks good to me, thanks!

Comment 5

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/9a6abcbf5b1a

Comment 6

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/9a6abcbf5b1a