Fenix: [Bug] Fenix reloads every page after being backgrounded

[Cheap-Skate]

Steps to reproduce

Restart phone so plenty of free memory
Close all Fenix tabs
Open arstechnica.com in Tab 1
Open mozilla.org in Tab 2
(mozilla.org page is visible)
put Fenix into background using Android home button
bring Fenix to foreground by tapping its icon
(mozilla.org page is visible)
switch to arstechnica.com tab by tapping tab counter & arstechnica tab
blank screen, arstechnica.com tab reloads which takes ~1-2 seconds
---> incorrect behavior, IMHO tabs should not need to reload when there is plenty of spare memory, they should be instantly visible

Device information

• Android device: Galaxy A40, Android 9
• Fenix version: Today's

[mattcoz]

I've been noticing this also.

[Mentis]

I have the same issue.
Android 10, Pixel 3 XL

[ekager]

cc @pocmo could this have anything to do with https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/pull/6170 ?

[Mentis]

Moreover, it happens to me on switching between tabs also.

[itzXian]

still having the issue, it really bugs me :-/

[ekager]

cc @pocmo I don't think https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/issues/5529 / https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/pull/6381 are related here since those were specifically tab collections. Is it possible we aren't restoring correctly somewhere else? And that this problem could have started with https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/pull/6170?

[liuche]

@sblatz adding this to AC top 10 - not sure what's causing this but seems likely something from AC, and needs some investigation.

[Maxnor]

Having the same issue on Samsung Note 10+ with plenty of memory available. The problem doesn't happen instantly when switching tabs.
What I did notice is that Firefox Preview is already using over 2 GB memory although only a few tabs are open.

[jonalmeida]

I see this in r-b as well. Seems like the page is getting unloaded when I'm switching between many tabs.

[victor-bayas]

Experiencing the same problem on my SM-G970F with OS 10, it works fine on incognito mode.

[joelocandol]

I have the same bug with Android 7.0 Oukitel c5 firefox nightly

[ccboxes]

Have the same bug.
In fact, there are similar problems when fenix being used in the foreground. When a tab is placed in the foreground for a long time, switching to another tab will cause a reload. Change 'browser.cache.memory.capacity' to -1 seems to help. But it doesn't work after being background.

[andreicristianpetcu]

same. one plus 5t

[Mentis]

This bug is quite annoying and makes multitasking between multiple tabs impossible. Hope this will be fixed once Fenix will be promoted to stable

[pocmo]

@psymoon Have you already looked into this? Otherwise I can help too. We landed a patch in AC that correctly restores the engine session. But I assume this is a different bug if it still reproduces in the latest Nightly.

[psymoon]

@pocmo I haven't had the chance to look at this yet. Feel free!

[pocmo]

We landed a patch for this in AC and it should make it into the next Nightly. I'll add the QA label.

[andreicristianpetcu]

@pocmo it does not seem fixed in the current fennec nightly :(

[xsikor]

Same shit.. not fixed yet
Version Nightly 200509 06:01
But now if you disable internet connection - firefox will be restore tabs from cache

[victor-bayas]

@pocmo Fenix is still unusable for me, the patch seems to only make it restore tabs faster but it stills unload those tabs from RAM when you switch to other app.

[Mentis]

Can confirm. Can't notice any change. Tabs are still getting unloaded. For me I don't even need to switch to another app. Tabs are getting unloaded on simple switching between them.

[lindongbin]

This bug started to appear from this version
https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/project.mobile.fenix.v2.nightly.2020.03.06/latest

This version is normal
https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/project.mobile.fenix.v2.nightly.2020.03.05/latest

[victor-bayas]

Can confirm that 03/05 nightly works fine, whatever change they introduced in the next nightly is likely the culprit of this bug.

[AndiAJ]

Hi, still reproducible on the latest Nightly Build 200511 from 5/11 using the following devices:
• Google Pixel 3a (Android 10)
• Huawei Mate 20 Lite (Android 9)
• OnePlus A3 (Android 6.0.1)

► Video

[pocmo]

@AndiAJ Can you check whether the scroll position for example restores? A quick loading bar can appear - however from the gif I can't really see whether we are actually reloading or restoring. Can you maybe make some logs accessible? :)

[AndiAJ]

Hi @pocmo ,
Yes, the scroll position is properly kept.
Yes, a quick load bar is displayed.

► Video

Log

Please review and share your thoughts. ☺️

[itzXian]

Fenix 5.0.0 from Play Store
and
Fenix Nightly 200305 06:01 from the comment

Steps:

• Play a Youtube video in a new tab
• Jump to a whatever position of the video
• Switch to another tab
• Go to Launcher
• Go back to Fenix
• Switch back to the Youtube tab
  On Fenix 5.0.0
  Reloading(or Restoring?) the page and playing the video from start
  On Fenix Nightly 200305 06:01
  What I expected

Record

[pocmo]

Thank you, @AndiAJ, this looks good.

@itzXian Thank you too! It looks like this specific issue is still reproducible and I'll try to debug what's going on in that case.

[itzXian]

I was wondering if this commit is related
89a260e

[xsikor]

@itzXian almost fixed
It's still re render pages, but now it's very fast

[Mentis]

For me main issue is that form content is being lost during the reload. This makes multitasking between multiple tabs almost impossible.

@itzXian almost fixed
It's still re render pages, but now it's very fast

[buttercookie42]

@Mentis Does this happen everywhere, even on very simple form fields (like e.g. one of the text inputs here: https://www.456bereastreet.com/lab/html5-input-types/), or only on more complex pages?

[Mentis]

@buttercookie42 wasn't able to repro it on this website. However can repro it like that:

[ghost]

It's really frustrating, I don't know when the tab will reload/restore and reset the position while restoring or lose the content I typed, even switching tab for a second or two cause it to restore, just a while back when I was browsing a reddit thread and switched to search something and when I got back after 3 seconds or so the position where I was at was reset so I had scroll to the exact position I was on and it was really frustrating because the thread was really long.

Device: Motorola One Power, Android 10.
Fenix: Version 5.1.0-beta.1

[buttercookie42]

@Mentis Okay, so that means that saving from data isn't completely broken, and restoring the search query on onliner.by is broken on Desktop as well [1], so that one is not a Fenix-specific problem.

[1] Though interestingly enough it does work in an older Firefox version.

[buttercookie42]

One thing that Fennec did was to effectively throttle memory pressure events through the way it tracked memory pressure through the MemoryMonitor.
I wonder to what extent that might explain the difference, or whether other factors are at play here (some actual bug in the tab unloading logic, Android having become more aggressive about signalling memory pressure, Fenix actually using more memory than Fennec?, ...)?

[pocmo]

We are definitely too aggressively freeing memory right now, I think. I filed this issue some time ago and intent to work on it soon: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/issues/7011
We are currently always reacting to TRIM_MEMORY_UI_HIDDEN and trimming all non selected tabs. That's why it is easily reproducible with backgrounding right now. However some pages (like YouTube) just do not restore like you'd expect (but also in Fennec) and this may still happen, but just more rarely.

[buttercookie42]

That explains it - TRIM_MEMORY_UI_HIDDEN indeed and definitively happens too early and often to discard tabs for.
@Mentis https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1640718 for the specific onliner.by problem.

[pocmo]

We landed a patch in AC to fix our memory pressure level handling. It should show up in Nightly soon.

[xsikor]

Yay!! It's fixed!
Now I can use preview as default browser
Thank your all!

[Maxnor]

Also fixed the problem for me. Thanks

[lindongbin]

not fix on 5.28 pm nightly version
type something in input box or search box on google
open another tab
Switch to the background and then back to the foreground
The contents of the search box disappear

[andreicristianpetcu]

@lindongbin it does not happen for me with the latest nightly. Please get your build from here https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/project.mobile.fenix.v2.fennec-nightly/latest

[lindongbin]

@lindongbin it does not happen for me with the latest nightly. Please get your build from here https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/project.mobile.fenix.v2.fennec-nightly/latest

confirm that the latest nightly version (5.29 am) background page will not reload, thanks

[andreicristianpetcu]

The Google Play "Nightly" is more like "Some build from this week :crossed_fingers:". The real Nightly builds are from Mozilla servers.

[andreicristianpetcu]

Should we close this?

[ghost]

@andreicristianpetcu Mozilla should share the builds with others who are willing to test early software builds. The links to the Firefox taskcluster are hidden and not mentioned and can't be found easily anywhere.

I stopped testing builds around when taskcluster links were changed a few months ago and only got them a while ago when someone shared this link with me: https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/project.mobile.fenix.v2 on Reddit. I have reported quite a lot bugs since having access to the builds early. Not only this they also don't publish compiled builds of Firefox Preview early and only have the source code. They only publish compiled builds once the Play Store also has it.

I request Mozilla to link the builds on GitHub readme page or somewhere easily visible. If someone willingly wants to test the early builds then I think Mozilla shouldn't stop them. It is apparent that Mozilla should do this as experienced recently with the Play Store situation. Now I know I can have access to Nightly versions early when things get normal; that is not what I want; I want to have access anything that Firefox developers publish. Just like the following link https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/project.mobile.fenix.v2

So please publish the links to the taskcluster builds. So that I don't lose access to the build when Mozilla changes the links to the taskcluster again.

[Maxnor]

Nightly 200528 06:00 (Build #21490607) from playstore yesterday solved the problem for me.
How/when will the fix be ported to the non-nightly?

[ghost]

@Maxnor when they believe it is stable enough I think.

[victor-bayas]

The Google Play "Nightly" is more like "Some build from this week :crossed_fingers:". The real Nightly builds are from Mozilla servers.

My Nightly is updating every day from the Play Store

[ghost]

@victor-bayas Yes, the situation is okay recently.

[softvision-miralobontiu]

Verified as fixed on the latest Nightly build from 5/29 with:

• Google Pixel (Android 10),
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium (Android 7.1.1), and
• OnePlus 5T (Android 9).

[pocmo]

Thank you all for verifying and providing steps to reproduce early. That was helpful for figuring out the problem.

Regarding Nightly builds: Whenever a Nightly build shows up on taskcluster that build also gets published to Google Play. It takes a while until they show up for end users as an update though. So there are no hidden builds on taskcluster! The whole process just takes some time and well, sometimes there's also something broken in the pipeline. :)

[ghost]

@pocmo I'm not saying that the builds themselves are hidden, what I'm saying is that the links to the Taskcluster aren't found easily anywhere.

[hakkikaancaliskan]

@pocmo hey dev, does this patch included in new beta update? I think this is deal breaker without it.

[ghost]

@hakkikaancaliskan I have 5.1.0-beta.3, and it still reloads the webpages.

[victor-bayas]

@hakkikaancaliskan I have 5.1.0-beta.3, and it still reloads the webpages.

Can confirm in my SM-G970F, issue persists in Fenix 5.1 (non-nightly)

[liuche]

Since this just landed, it won't be in the 5.1 release, but will be part of the 5.2 release. Our QA process takes a few days, so this missed the cutoff.

[ghost]

@liuche Is it available in the 77.0.0-beta.1?

[victor-bayas]

@liuche Is it available in the 77.0.0-beta.1?

I downloaded the 77.0 beta 1 from here https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com/tasks/index/project.mobile.fenix.v2.fennec-beta/latest and it still discards backgrounded tabs

[ghost]

@victor-bayas then we need to wait another 2 weeks before it gets included in 5.2. I think there's no difference between Firefox Preview and Firefox Beta; they both have the same codebase if you are keeping your build up-to-date from the Taskcluster.

[pocmo]

77.0.0-beta.1 is the same as 5.1.0-beta.3 - The only difference being the versioning for different channels (Firefox Beta 77.0 vs. Firefox Preview 5.1)

[madb1lly]

Hi all,

I'm pretty sure this bug is still present, I can't keep anywhere near as many tabs live in Fenix as I can in Fennec.

Shall i raise a new issue?

Cheers 🙂

[lindongbin]

Hi all,

I'm pretty sure this bug is still present, I can't keep anywhere near as many tabs live in Fenix as I can in Fennec.

Shall i raise a new issue?

Cheers 🙂

Sometimes switching tabs or open new website in the foreground will also cause other tabs to reload

[ghost]

I also have this issue on latest nightly. And it is made worse by https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/12664. Please reopen this issue.

[ghost]

https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/12731

[madb1lly]

Hi all,
Since this issue is closed it's probably best to post in @lorinet's new issue #12731.
Cheers 🙂