Fenix: When switching tabs, newly active tabs always reload

[Lorinet]

If I were to do a Google search, open a new tab, visit any website, then switch back to that first tab, that oroginal Google search would then reload completely, regardless of the fact that it was loaded previously and not cleared from memory. Also, when I push the app into background, and then go back to it from the Recents screen, the page that was open would have to load again completely, even though the app wasn't erased from memory, and this loading time is much longer than a simple page navigation. Chrome does not do this and that's why it is better. Fix these issues instead of playing around with silly UI changes.

[madb1lly]

Hi @Lorinet,

Thanks for raising the issue. #9039 and other similar issues have been closed for some reason even though it's clear that browsing experience in this respect is still not good enough. In my qualitative experience Fenix keeps no more than 2-4 tabs in memory and often this is reduced to 1, with Fenix reloading every time I switch tabs. This is far from the slick browsing experience I had with Fennec which could keep 10s of tabs loaded easily.

If Fennec was still being developed I'd still be using it and this tab reloading is one of the reasons why.

Cheers 🙂

[eliserichards]

@Lorinet @madb1lly what devices and version of android are you using?

[madb1lly]

Hi @eliserichards,
I'm using Nokia 8 with Android 9.
Cheers 🙂

[lindongbin]

9979 not fixed

79.0.0 (Build #2015753315)
AC: 48.0.7, fd0087500
GV: 79.0-20200720193547
AS: 61.0.10

[madb1lly]

Hi @lindongbin,
It's not fixed on latest nightly either so those of you on beta probably still have long time to wait 😕
Cheers 🙂

[Namit-Nayan]

Okay with some hit and trial:

1. this bug starts to happen even if i access about:config and change nothing. (if you change some flags then this will definitely happen).
2. i uninstalled and then reinstalled the nightly, installed all my addons, did not open about:config, And i am not facing the bug for now.

The addons I use:
uBlock Origin(thus disabled ETP), Decentraleyes, video background playback fix.

How I tested?
(Do a clean install of the browser.)

1. load two tabs with any website.
2. press home button.(or swipe up, if using gesture navigation)
3. Open fenix and check those tabs.
4. if the tabs reloads, the bug is there.(least recently opened tab never reloads)

Version:
Nightly 200903 06:04 (Build #2015761715)
AC: 58.0.20200901190136, 478151899
GV: 82.0a1-20200831091558
AS: 61.0.13

Device:
Asus Zenfone max pro m1(X00TD)
3gb ram
running lineage OS 16.0 ( Android pie)

[madb1lly]

Hi all,

If I switch tabs back and forth quickly by swiping on the address bar I can keep 2-4 tabs in memory, but they quickly disappear if I stay on one tab too long. In fact this quick swiping back and forth also causes Fenix to slow down significantly, so it's not a workaround in any sense.

Cheers 🙂

[Namit-Nayan]

It happened again. And if I exit(press back button) after going to home screen of fenix(the screen you get when opening new tab) then the bug stops.
So it's totally random, and i really hope it is fixed soon. (because this bug nullifies all the advantages fenix provides in terms of speed and mobile data savings.)

[ShintoPlasm]

I can confirm this is still ongoing in Firefox Stable 81.1.1 - it's driving me crazy, and undermines the entire purpose of a multi-tab browser. An enormous regression from the Fennec versions, which really should have been picked up during the prolonged Preview stage.

[Namit-Nayan]

An enormous regression from the Fennec versions, which really should have been picked up during the prolonged Preview stage.

It was fixed here for a while

[ShintoPlasm]

An enormous regression from the Fennec versions, which really should have been picked up during the prolonged Preview stage.

It was fixed here for a while

I don't understand what you mean. Clearly this issue is still ongoing in the latest Stable version, and even the issue you linked to hasn't been resolved. The current issue (#12731) is still very much Open.

[Namit-Nayan]

I said there for a while(means there were some versions, when the issue wasn't there, And then the issue reappeared, and here we are) . Leave it.

[Amejia481]

Please we could like the QA team to take a look to find STR and the devices where this is happening, thanks!

[ShintoPlasm]

Please we could like the QA team to take a look to find STR and the devices where this is happening, thanks!

How can I help?

My device is Google Pixel 3a, currently on Android 11 (Build number RP1A.200720.009)

[Amejia481]

Could you share your about Firefox page (Three dotted menu -> Settings -> About Firefox)? In the same screen, it's also a "Crashes" section, could you share it please? It will be verify helpful, if there is a pattern or a set of steps that you normally do when this happens?

[ShintoPlasm]

@Amejia481 :

From the About screen-

81.1.1 (Build #2015764547)
AC: 57.0.6, bdbd5ccfd
GV: 81.0-20200917005511
AS: 61.0.13

No crashes appear in the Crashes screen.

In terms of steps to reproduce, this has already been described several times in various bug reports here. In my case, here's an example workflow:

1. Go to Google in tab A. Search for something.
2. In Google search results, long-press on a random result to open tab B. Switch to tab B. Tab B loads.
3. Go back to Google results in tab A. Long-press another result to create tab C. Go to tab C. Tab C loads.
4. Same as in step 3 to create tab D.
5. Start tab-switching between the four open tabs. More often than not, the tab I switch to will reload. Typically, this reload appears to require two or more tab switches; when I alternate between adjacent tabs (tab A <> B, tab A <> C etc) the tabs will remain in memory after the initial reload. However, if I continuosly switch between tab A > B > C > D > A and similar sequences, each tab reloads consistently.

[ShintoPlasm]

Addendum: the behaviour described above happens very often, and is more consistent the more background tabs are opened. But it doesn't happen with absolute 100% repeatability, so not entirely sure what is happening.

[nunesgh]

@Amejia481, Moto G6 Play here (Build # PPPS29.55-35-18-7), on Android 9.

From the Firefox About screen:

81.1.2 (Build #2015767041)
AC: 57.0.7, 68343a885
GV: 81.0.1-20200930150533
AS: 61.0.13

Also no crash to report.

I have experienced the same issues @ShintoPlasm has reported.

[madb1lly]

Nightly 201007 17:09 (Build #2015768331)
AC: 62.0.20201002143132, d96b23188
GV: 83.0a1-20201001094020
AS: 63.0.0

[jcosentino]

This becomes a massive issue when on a site like Jackbox tv and going between that and another tab. Also, sites that involve data submission become impossible to navigate because the background tabs keep refreshing.

[sflorean]

Tested on Nightly 10/8 and Release version with the following devices:

• Google Pixel 3 (Android 11)
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10 (Android 10)
• LG G7 FIT (Android 8)
• Huawei MediaPad M2 (Android 5.1.1)
• Motorola Nexus 6 (Android 7.1.1)
  @Amejia481 I wasn't able to reproduce the issue following the steps available. But, I think it is related to the time we spend on a page, and after that switching to another, and not 100% reproducible.
  Also, I noticed that if the app stays in the background (but not closed) when it is opened, the pages reload.
  If we can gather some more info about any extra steps or devices used, please ping me to try again.

[madb1lly]

I forgot to say mine is a Nokia 8 on Android 9.

@sflorean, yes it's to do with usage, probably the more you use it the more it happens. Do you use Fenix as your daily browser?

Is it possibly related to tracking protection? Mine is set to strict.

Cheers 🙂

[Namit-Nayan]

Also, I noticed that if the app stays in the background (but not closed) when it is opened, the pages reload.

@sflorean Thanks you observed! This issue is same as #9039 .

[qautomotive]

I am affected by this bug, but it may help others to follow the advice of this chap to lessen the effect of it slightly: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/9039#issuecomment-618887667

[ShintoPlasm]

Still happening on Stable version 82.1.1

[g-du-1]

Noticed this too on Beta and Stable on Note 10+ with 12gb RAM. It never used to do this. Battery optimizations, sleeping apps and all other similar settings are turned off. The app locked in ram too and the app itself never gets killed, but the tabs refresh when changing between them after a while. Even settings like browser.tabs.disableBackgroundZombification and browser.tabs.expireTime don't seem to do anything anymore.

[pocmo]

On my Nexus 9 I see this happening for every tab switch too. Investigating...

[pocmo]

At first I thought our memory trimming code in AC may be responsible. But looking at the Nexus 9 I see Android sending onTrimMemory() warnings to the content process (which will not be handled by app/ac code) and then shortly after receiving TRIM_MEMORY_COMPLETE Android decides it is time to kill the content process. When we then restore a tab, that visually looks like a reload. At least my Nexus 9 seems to be in constant memory pressure and this happens on basically every tab switch.

@agi Is there anything we can do here?

[mehdisadeghi]

I am using Firefox Beta on Samsung Galaxy S8 with the following info:

83.0.0-beta.4 (Build #2015774563)
AC: 63.0.7, 5cb922f2f
GV: 83.0-20201108174701
AS: 63.0.0

I have been experiencing this bug for a long time with every version AFAIK. Disabling ublock and privacy badger did not help. Changing about.config and setting entries like browser.tabs.disableBackgroundZombification and browser.tabs.expireTime as other users reported did not help as well.

Update: there is yet another related annoyance. Even when the pages do not reload (I swipe on the address bar), there is a momentarily flash on the whole page, as if Firefox wants to reload but due to something doesn't and nevertheless it makes a flash on the page.

This one is the cherry on the cake.

[globalhuman]

This is probably one of the most irritating bugs I've encountered. While posting this it reloaded when I:

• Went to settings to find the version
• opened system file uploader for screenshot.

No I don't need a new phone. Firefox worked before this update.

Samsung s8
Nightly 201123 17:01 (Build #2015777355)
AC: 68.0.20201122190139, 52be4ca37
GV: 85.0a1-20201122093438
AS: 67.0.0

The about:config changes worked for maybe a day and then didn't anymore.

I use chrome as a backup now that I haven't had installed for many years.

[dessant]

This is a critical bug that causes people to lose data as they switch between apps or tabs, the issue should be marked P1 and the fix uplifted to the stable release. You are losing corporate users over this issue, I've talked to people whom are migrating away from Firefox specifically because of this bug.

Flagship devices from 2020 with a single tab open are also affected, and it makes Firefox unusable in any professional or critical setting, because form data is randomly lost between app switches.

[pocmo]

This week I am going to add some additional memory-related logging so that we can at least start to confirm if everyone here is seeing the same problem (as I have on my Nexus 9( or whether there are some subtle differences.

[mohibo]

still happening in stable version 83.1.0 on my nokia 4.2
and no crashes at all

[mohibo]

An enormous regression from the Fennec versions, which really should have been picked up during the prolonged Preview stage.

It was fixed here for a while
and now its a problem again

[eberhardweber]

This issue is definitely getting worse for me on my Xiaomi Mi A1 with every new release. I can't say this issue was never "fixed" in my usage, but it's gotten worse as we go. Right now, we're to the point where there's basically a reload every time I switch back to Firefox from other apps or to a tab. Firefox. 84.0.0-beta.2 (Build #2015776763)

[teohhanhui]

@eberhardweber If you're using the Mi A1 you have bigger issues with overaggressive killing. I was using a Mi A1 until recently (switched to Pixel 4a), and apps kept getting killed upon switching. My brother who was also using a Mi A1 confirmed seeing the same behaviour, so it's not just me. It's definitely Xiaomi's fault.

[ShintoPlasm]

@teohhanhui While this overaggressive process termination might be a Xiaomi thing, this bug is recurring on my Pixel 3a at a similar frequency and has been reported across a large number of devices.

[eberhardweber]

@eberhardweber If you're using the Mi A1 you have bigger issues with overaggressive killing. I was using a Mi A1 until recently (switched to Pixel 4a), and apps kept getting killed upon switching. My brother who was also using a Mi A1 confirmed seeing the same behaviour, so it's not just me. It's definitely Xiaomi's fault.

You're definitely not wrong in the grander scheme of things, I've seen many users complain about this in other instances. That said, I'm not using the trigger-happy stock ROM myself, using the "Pixel Experience" ROM with a custom kernel.

What I can tell you, though, is that despite the overall poorness of the stock software (that I didn't personally really suffer from while back on stock), this issue has exacerbated _considerably_ over the past few months. I didn't have these constant tab reloads with tab and app switching, and overall, the program itself was kept in memory much better before.

@teohhanhui While this overaggressive process termination might be a Xiaomi thing, this bug is recurring on my Pixel 3a at a similar frequency and has been reported across a large number of devices.

Yes! This issue is extremely prevalent right now on a large variety of devices. You only have to look at Reddit to see how much of an issue it is: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/search/?q=tabs+reload&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all

[pocmo]

We added some additional logging to the Nightly version. If someone of you (especially those with S8 devices) could provide some logs, that would help us debug this issue. Your log may contain messages containing "memory" or "onTrimMemory".

[DavidJCobb]

I don't have Nightly. On someone else's advice, I used adb logcat on the stable release, and produced this log when the issue occurred. If I have time, I'll see if I can get this same test to reproduce the issue on Nightly. See edit below.

My test involved starting Firefox from scratch, running logcat, and then only activating two tabs: one playing music off of YouTube's mobile site, and another reading articles from scpwiki.com. (I had more tabs in the background, unloaded and kept from a previous session, but I never loaded any of them.) The YouTube tab was kept in the background as much as possible, with the music playing; when one song ended, I would switch to the tab, pick another song from recommendations, and then switch back to the tab with articles in it. Similarly, when I finished reading one article, I'd navigate to another in the same tab.

After about forty-five minutes of testing (the terminal window only retained the last five or so minutes of logs, so that's all I can provide), the music cut out while I was reading an article in the non-YouTube tab, indicating that the YouTube tab was forcibly unloaded. Upon switching to the YouTube tab by swiping the address bar, I saw only a solid-color dark grey page with nothing on it; I'm unsure whether this was the page background color or some part of the browser. The page did not refresh on its own.

As such, I'm unsure whether this is the same memory issue as OP. It's possible that having media playing changes the behavior of the bug; alternatively, this could be a separate, but very similar, issue.

The song that was interrupted was "The Pretender" by Infected Mushroom, and the song title was part of the page title, so it _does_ show up in the logs, but I otherwise don't know how to read them. The article I was reading was SCP-1979 and all articles in the foreground tab were from the same site, in case knowing that is useful.

After this test, I noticed that the "dead" YouTube tab still showed a media play/pause button in the tab drawer, and it displayed as paused. Attempting to click it and resume the media changed the button icon but did not trigger any media playback while in the tab drawer; however, pausing, playing, and then actually tapping into the tab caused the tab to be restored, with the song about thirty seconds in, which I _think_ was roughly where it had stopped when the tab "died." So, this "resurrected" the tab rather than actually refreshing/reloading it.

UPDATE: I spent about an hour and a half, maybe more, repeating the same test on a freshly installed Nightly. Same device, same add-ons except Dark Reader (not installed), but no history, bookmarks, or unrelated tabs. Couldn't repro. Browsing alone isn't enough to trigger this; either it's fixed in Nightly or it has to occur on a "real" installation with real history, bookmarks, and a large number of saved but unloaded tabs.

[tbsn]

On a 2gb ram device this happens reproducible after opening/reloading several tabs and switching back and forth. Depending on the "heaviness" of the sites it varies a little bit how long it takes until a tab gets suspended.

12-10 16:39:23.682 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:39:27.153 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:39:29.348 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:39:33.083 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:39:35.912 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:39:43.601 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:39:45.650 I/FenixApplication(21825): onTrimMemory(), level=15, main=false
12-10 16:39:46.133 I/FenixApplication(21825): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:39:48.619 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:39:57.858 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:39:59.300 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=15, main=false
12-10 16:39:59.320 I/FenixApplication(3671): onTrimMemory(), level=15, main=true
12-10 16:39:59.325 I/TrimMemoryMiddleware(3671): Suspending tabs to trim memory
12-10 16:39:59.563 I/FenixApplication(22014): onTrimMemory(), level=15, main=false
12-10 16:40:00.247 I/FenixApplication(22014): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:40:13.224 I/FenixApplication(3781): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=false
12-10 16:40:13.254 I/FenixApplication(3671): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=true
12-10 16:40:13.259 I/TrimMemoryMiddleware(3671): Suspending tabs to trim memory
12-10 16:40:14.164 I/FenixApplication(3671): onTrimMemory(), level=80, main=true
12-10 16:40:14.165 I/TrimMemoryMiddleware(3671): Suspending tabs to trim memory

I can confirm that Iceraven's fix is helping in this regard.

[pocmo]

I opened another PR in AC that makes us less aggressive about suspending tabs and also adds more information to the log messages for debugging.

However that won't fix the problem entirely since regardless of our own trimming, Android seems to kill the content process aggressively. I filed a GeckoView bug for that to further investigate there:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1682319

[ShintoPlasm]

@pocmo Thanks for filing that bug. One small comment: are you sure that this is a lazy restore rather than a full reload? My understanding was that form data is retained during a lazy restore, yet many users here (including myself) have lost form data during the tab reload.

[dessant]

@pocmo, regarding the Bugzilla issue, it does not happen only on devices that are low on memory, flagship devices from 2020 that have plenty of memory are also affected.

For example, we have two apps open on a Samsung Galaxy S20 with 8GB of RAM: Firefox with a single tab, and the Messages app. A payment page is visited on Firefox, we switch to the Messages app to retrieve an SMS confirmation code for the payment, and when switching back to Firefox, the tab is sometimes reloaded and the state of the payment page is now lost. The page reload was observed on other sites too under the same test case, not just with this particular payment page.

The issue does not appear to be caused by an inherent Android or device limitation, otherwise we would see the same problem in other browsers too, including Firefox for Android 68, but we don't.

[pocmo]

@pocmo Thanks for filing that bug. One small comment: are you sure that this is a lazy restore rather than a full reload? My understanding was that form data is retained during a lazy restore, yet many users here (including myself) have lost form data during the tab reload.

What I have been seeing were lazy restores yes. A lazy restore may result in a loss of some form data too, I think, if we didn't get a state with the form data in it yet, or in some cases the page behavior can cause it too afaik. Can you reproduce this reliably?

For example, we have two apps open on a Samsung Galaxy S20 with 8GB of RAM: Firefox with a single tab, and the Messages app. A payment page is visited on Firefox, we switch to the Messages app to retrieve an SMS confirmation code for the payment, and when switching back to Firefox, the tab is sometimes reloaded and the state of the payment page is now lost. The page reload was observed on other sites too under the same test case, not just with this particular payment page.

Are you able to reproduce this with Nightly and can you provide some logs? I am curious if we see a similar pattern.

[MadridSpain]

This issue is STILL NOT FIXED (2020 December 18), even on Firefox Daylight 84.1.1 (build #2015781795) on an up-to-date Samsung Galaxy S8 with 4GB of ram. I have tried on an up-to-date version of Nightly (build #2015781579) and the same problem exists. The Nightly is notable in that I don't have ANY add-ons installed (it's vanilla). This is seriously a terrible browsing experience. You have a lengthy comment that you're in the middle of writing, or a youtube video you're in the middle of watching. You switch tabs for a moment and when you come back, the page reloads. HORRIBLE. I no longer recommend Firefox Mobile to friends or family. It's been like this for months. The problem is worse the longer you are away or the more things you are doing in the other tab. When you come back, it's that much more likely to reload. Note: I do NOT have the "synced tabs" feature turned on.

[swift000]

@MadridSpain

Completely agree, I've been following this issue for some time hoping for a resolution. I've lost count of the number of time the page has refreshed and I ended up losing everything I had entered on the form.

[pocmo]

You may be seeing a bug in tab restoring, which makes the whole situation worse. Can you share any of the pags where you see forms not restore correctly? I did a quick test and saw restore happening on cold app starts as well as when restoring a tab after memory pressure.

YouTube seems to be a special case where the page plays the content from the beginning. I can see the same behavior in Chrome after a cold start or when the tab reloads after memory pressure.

So there seem to be at least two problems here:

• Firefox running into memory issues pretty often and/or Android very aggressively killing our content process (tabs get restored, visually reload)
• Tab restore not fully restoring the previous state (which at times can be caused by the page itself) - Here some example pages would be helpful for debugging.

[andreicristianpetcu]

I was also affected by this bug, now it does not reproduce anymore. When it did, I used this addon in Nightly https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-resumer

Hope this gets fixed soon for everybody else. Hope my workaround is useful

[lindongbin]

I was also affected by this bug, now it does not reproduce anymore. When it did, I used this addon in Nightly https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-resumer

Hope this gets fixed soon for everybody else. Hope my workaround is useful

I think it works！

[Namit-Nayan]

Now the situation is better.
Earlier it only kept 1 tab in memory while fenix was backgrounded, now it can keep around 4-5 tabs. (Mostly text and some images.)

Though one thing I observed, the last 3 accessed pages show up instantly, After which there's a reload like animation but the next 2 pages actually restore. (I kept my internet off to check.)

More than that all pages show no internet connection and reload button.

For the very same set of pages on bromite (chromium v87) it kept 15 pages and I stopped counting after that.

Also if I try to load 10+ tabs in fenix without backgrounding fenix so that it has all tabs are in memory at that time, it crashes (and other apps in memory too(keyboard, launcher etc)) due to low memory, but no such issue with chromium.

tested on v85 beta 2.
Add-ons Ublock Origin, decentralryes, video background playback fix.
Site : m.hindustantimes.com (kept opening the starting stories in new tab.)

Didn't test without add-ons , because then I would use chromium browsers. (Fenix + ublock Origin that's why I use fenix in first place.)

[MadridSpain]

You may be seeing a bug in tab restoring, which makes the whole situation worse. Can you share any of the pags where you see forms not restore correctly? I did a quick test and saw restore happening on cold app starts as well as when restoring a tab after memory pressure.

YouTube seems to be a special case where the page plays the content from the beginning. I can see the same behavior in Chrome after a cold start or when the tab reloads after memory pressure.

So there seem to be at least two problems here:

* Firefox running into memory issues pretty often and/or Android very aggressively killing our content process (tabs get restored, visually reload)

* Tab restore not fully restoring the previous state (which at times can be caused by the page itself) - Here some example pages would be helpful for debugging.

Do Firefox developers not use Firefox on their personal smartphones? I don't mean that facetiously. I do hundreds of hours of browsing a month on mobile, using Firefox Daylight exclusively. This bug happens everywhere. Reddit, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube... it doesn't matter. It's all over the place. If I have 5 or 10 tabs open, even if they're non-resource heavy tabs (like 10 Wikipedia pages) and I do some browsing in one of the tabs, and then I go back to one of the older tabs I opened earlier, it reloads that page. It's so bad that if I'm writing a comment somewhere, and I need to switch to another tab, I will copy all the text that I've written first because I know when I come back to the page it will likely reload.

The simplest demonstration is to just go to a Wikipedia page, longpress on any hyperlinked article within the page, and select "open link in new tab". Go to the new tab with the new article you just opened. Repeat this process until you have 10 different Wikipedia articles open (10 tabs total). When you come back to the first tab you started with, it will reload. If you had had any text in the search box, or were in the process of editing that page, etc., it will all vanish upon reloading. If you can't reproduce the bug following these steps with the Wikipedia procedure, then on the final article (tab 10), start doing some regular browsing. Maybe go and spend a few minutes digging, reading, opening links in new tabs, go check your favorite news site, etc. Then, come back to that first Wikipedia tab. Alternatively, you could try waiting 5 minutes after opening that 10th tab, and then come back to that first tab.

Again, even on Nightly, without any add-ons installed, this problem exists.

This problem still exists and has for months. Anyone who actually uses Firefox Fenix for their mobile browser on a daily basis should, I would think, understand all of this. This problem even existed on Fennec.

[andreicristianpetcu]

@MadridSpain I think the devs use ff, they are probably not affected by this bug. I was affected by this bug at some point but not anymore. Maybe it depends on the phone or os.

[MadridSpain]

@MadridSpain I think the devs use ff, they are probably not affected by this bug. I was affected by this bug at some point but not anymore. Maybe it depends on the phone or os.

Don't know how they can not be affected by this bug. My phone is an up-to-date standard Samsung S8 with the standard Android OS. Not unlocked, nothing weird. No problems with other browsers. Problem has existed for months and months, even before Fenix, although it has gotten worse I believe. This ticket is from July. I'm obviously not the only one.

[adolfofp]

I agree with @Namit-Nayan
With latest nightly, situation is a bit better

[MadridSpain]

I agree with @Namit-Nayan
With latest nightly, situation is a bit better

Not me.

[andreicristianpetcu]

@MadridSpain It's not clear what causes this. It's certain that it happens for some users but not for others. It's also certain that this is a complicated problem and some users saw improvements in Nightly while others saw this bug as fixed, such is my case. It's also clear that this bug carries on in some configs such as yours.

What can you do in this situation? When devs ask for details here, do your best to collect the info and share it. Otherwise just wait for a ffix. I understand it's frustrating but if you don't see this issue in other browsers, please use another browser. Complaining here does not help the devs and it does not get it fixed.

[MadridSpain]

@MadridSpain It's not clear what causes this. It's certain that it happens for some users but not for others. It's also certain that this is a complicated problem and some users saw improvements in Nightly while others saw this bug as fixed, such is my case. It's also clear that this bug carries on in some configs such as yours.

What can you do in this situation? When devs ask for details here, do your best to collect the info and share it. Otherwise just wait for a ffix. I understand it's frustrating but if you don't see this issue in other browsers, please use another browser. Complaining here does not help the devs and it does not get it fixed.

I am not merely complaining. I am taking hours out of my life to provide details of this problem so it can be fixed, including build numbers, personal device information, procedures on how to reproduce the bug, feedback about other people's fixes, and responses to questions and speculation (ex: "phone or os."). Click on my Github account and you will also find several other bugs that I opened, some of which took hours to prepare.

Firefox should be fortunate to have a community that wants it to succeed as much as we do. Look at the endless streams of 1 star reviews on Google Play ever since the switch to Fenix. The issues described in this bug and elsewhere, as well as certain design decisions, are part of the reason FF mobile remains such a tiny market share.

[metronightly]

I had the same issue on my 3GB Ram android 10 phone, no matter how light the pages were, switching between just 2 tabs would immediate reloading. Both Daylight and Nightly were just ridiculously bad.

Then someone suggested me Firefox Beta and guess what, the issue is gone. I now have 5(Edit: 7 tabs) tabs and switching between them is not a problem. I hope the issue is fixed soon, but till then try Beta. I am loving it so far.

[andreicristianpetcu]

This started to reproduce on my phone again. I think I had several media heavy tabs with videos and photos. I also had more tabs than usual.

If you need any technical info like logs or profile or whatever, please tell me. Not sure if the info provided by others is enough or the more the merrier.

[SkyeAuroline]

Per instruction from /r/firefox, ran logging on my phone to see if I could make it happen. Couldn't force it to reload within Firefox proper or when switching away from the app (I mostly get it when switching away rather than within the app), but I did log Firefox failing to properly save tab state & Chrome successfully doing so, if that's at all helpful.

https://gist.github.com/SkyeAuroline/2b47683d8ffa45f843a6ed7935647d5e

[shawnshyguy]

Attached a copy-paste of the output of adb logcat -v time, but I think only so many lines are stored in cmd until it starts deleting old ones, so I'm not so sure how helpful it'll be. I'll also attach a streamable link for a video demonstration (separate from ADB log).
Basically, any time i don't have the tab directly open, it wants to reload when I open it back up.
log.txt | Streamable