915500 - Firefox form history shows some items twice

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit :: Form Manager, defect)

Description

[Ray Satiro]

Attachment: Firefox duplicate form item.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:17.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/17.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20130907000501

Steps to reproduce:

I'm filling out forms and the drop down sometimes shows the same item twice. It's definitely happening but I can't offer a way to reproduce. I just use the browser for a few hours and then I'll notice a duplicate.

I'm using the Form History Control addon but 'Let Form History Control manage form history' is unchecked.

gecko.mstone = 25.0a2
gecko.buildID = 20130910004002

My original report is at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=896142#c28 but I was told to start a new bug.


Actual results:

The same item is shown twice.


Expected results:

Each item should only be shown once.

Comment 1

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

Thanks for filing, but we really need to rule out the possibility that your Form History Control add-on is causing the problem.  Even if you disable or uninstall it, depending on how it works, it could have changed your Firefox profile data, and those changes may persist afterward.

Could you please create a new profile and try to reproduce the problem there?  https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

Comment 2

[Ray Satiro]

Is there anything I can do for you in my current profile? This evening I upgraded to:

gecko.mstone = 25.0a2
gecko.buildID = 20130913004001

I retested and I see the same problem. I followed a process similar to what I described initially: "I exported my form history using form history control, exited firefox, deleted formhistory.sqlite, started firefox and imported form history." But this time after doing that I disabled Form History Control, set browser.formfill.debug = true and restarted. After several hours I have a few duplicates, mostly my email address and a few are some numbers.

When I tried to fill in an email and saw a duplicate in the dropdown the console output:
[23:47:46.379] FormAutoComplete: AutoCompleteSearch invoked. Search is: 
[23:47:46.379] FormAutoComplete: Creating new autocomplete search result.
[23:47:49.500] FormAutoComplete: AutoCompleteSearch invoked. Search is: 
[23:47:49.500] FormAutoComplete: Creating new autocomplete search result.

Later on this repeated dozens of times:
[23:51:22.561] FormHistory: Database contains multiple entries with the same fieldname/value pair.
[23:51:23.605] satchelFormListener: Form submit observer notified.
[23:51:23.605] satchelFormListener: sending entries to parent process for form ctl11
[23:51:24.829] FormHistory: Database contains multiple entries with the same fieldname/value pair.
[23:51:26.264] satchelFormListener: Form submit observer notified.
[23:51:26.264] satchelFormListener: sending entries to parent process for form ctl11
[23:51:27.529] FormHistory: Database contains multiple entries with the same fieldname/value pair.
[23:51:28.651] satchelFormListener: Form submit observer notified.
[23:51:28.651] satchelFormListener: sending entries to parent process for form ctl11
[23:51:29.899] FormHistory: Database contains multiple entries with the same fieldname/value pair.

Comment 3

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

(In reply to Ray Satiro from comment #2)
> I retested and I see the same problem. I followed a process similar to what
> I described initially: "I exported my form history using form history
> control, exited firefox, deleted formhistory.sqlite, started firefox and
> imported form history."

That likely won't help if there's a problem in your form history, which it sounds like there is.  You're just importing the problem.  Even if you disable the add-on after import, the problem is still there in the imported history.

You could try deleting formhistory.sqlite from your current profile (first ensuring you have a backup copy somewhere else of course) and running Firefox for a long period of time after that, with the add-on installed or disabled, and without importing anything, to see if the problem happens again.

Comment 4

[Ray Satiro]

(In reply to Drew Willcoxon :adw from comment #3)
> You could try deleting formhistory.sqlite from your current profile (first
> ensuring you have a backup copy somewhere else of course) and running
> Firefox for a long period of time after that, with the add-on installed or
> disabled, and without importing anything, to see if the problem happens
> again.

Thanks I'm going to try that. I uninstalled Form History Control, exited Firefox and deleted the sqlite file and cache directory.

Comment 5

[Ray Satiro]

I ran Firefox for 10 days with Form History Control uninstalled and then I reinstalled it and used it for 10 more days. I didn't encounter any duplicates at all during that time. I exported the form history just now and it doesn't contain any duplicates.

It appears you were correct, my old form history was corrupt and when I imported the XML backup I imported the problem. I don't see anything unusual. Here's what a dupe looks like in XML:
<field>
	<name>email</name>
	<value>[e-mail]</value>
	<timesUsed>7892</timesUsed>
	<firstUsed>2012-11-22T18:29:54.601</firstUsed>
	<lastUsed>2013-05-14T18:22:19.468</lastUsed>
</field>

...

<field>
	<name>email</name>
	<value>[e-mail]</value>
	<timesUsed>1</timesUsed>
	<firstUsed>2013-05-14T18:23:05.001</firstUsed>
	<lastUsed>2013-05-14T18:23:05.001</lastUsed>
</field>

I have no problem using the new form history since it works properly. If you would like me to do anything else to help identify the cause of the old corrupted history let me know.

Comment 6

[Drew Willcoxon :adw]

OK, thanks, Ray.  Glad the problem hasn't recurred.  If you notice it happening again, it would be great if you could try to find some concrete steps that I and others could use to reproduce.  The corruption was likely caused by the add-on and not Firefox itself, maybe an old version of the add-on, but it would still be nice if we could find the cause.  In the meantime, I will mark this bug as resolved.