Fenix: browser stuck in infinite loop asking for location permission

[sirwasi]

Site with issue and any steps to reproduce

https://www.rotpunkt-apotheken.ch/wettbewerb/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wettbewerb_2020_september

Expected behavior

Browser shows site and asks once for permission to send my location

Actual behavior

Browser asks reportedly for permission for site to access my location in an infinite loop from which I can not break out and ever manage to browse the actual content. The whole browser UI remains fully blocked in constant reloads (until close app).

Does toggling Tracking Protection fix the issue? (Press the lock icon in the toolbar while on the site to see toggle)

Not possible (alert overlaps any controls)

Can you reproduce in Firefox for Android?

No

Can you reproduce in Chrome (or other non-Mozilla browser)?

No

Device information

• Android device: 10
• Fenix version: 79.0.5 (Build #2015758619)
  AC: 48.0.15, 8755ac0cd
  GV: 79.0.1-20200813192915
  AS: 61.0.10

[clientenq]

Can not reproduce.

[liuche]

I can repro this - not sure if GeckoView should be throttling or Fenix.

[mcarare]

I think this might be fixable in AC to not show the prompt if it is already shown, but on choosing an option to allow or block without checking option to remember decision could bring the prompt back again. And the app would still need to process all the permissions requests, and that could impact performance.
IMO it might be worth investigating fixing this in gecko view so that a website would not request a permission it already asked for and not received an answer yet.
@liuche can you ping someone from GV that could look into this? Thank you!

[liuche]

Thanks for investigating, @mcarare! I talked to @droeh from GV in the GV matrix channel - they would like the control to not be in GV, such as for "never notify me again".

jon linked me to some Prompts controls, is this something we could re-use? https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/blob/master/components/feature/prompts/src/main/java/mozilla/components/feature/prompts/dialog/PromptAbuserDetector.kt
https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/blob/2264e52f07401c2676186199ae3ac1c8f608e654/components/feature/prompts/src/main/java/mozilla/components/feature/prompts/PromptFeature.kt#L358

or perhaps it's not being used for Location prompts?

[mcarare]

AFAIK this is not used on permissions requests. And the requests are indeed consumed after you click once on allow or do not allow, the problem is that all the other dialogs remain opened. The fix would be in another place in AC, where we could check if we already shown the dialog for a type of request. This would also need to account for https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/14637.
As a note: Any change will still result in Fenix receiving a bunch of requests and deciding to show them or not.

[bifleming]

@liuche how to proceed?

[codrut-topliceanu]

Fix for https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/14637 will solve this issue.

[AndiAJ]

Hi, still reproducible on the latest Nightly Build 201103 using the following devices:
• Google Pixel 3a (Android 11)
• Huawei Mate 20 Lite (Android 10)
• OnePlus A3 (Android 6.0.1)

► Video

[codrut-topliceanu]

@AndiAJ I believe the fix will be available with AC 65. I apologise for not specifying this sooner :(

[codrut-topliceanu]

The site in the original comment keeps sending permission requests to the user.

Before the fix for #14637 this would create an infinite number of permission request dialogs to the user, and checking "Remember decision for this site" wouldn't have solved the issue.

After the fix for #14637 only one dialog is displayed at once and checking "Remember decision for this site" prevents the site for asking for that permission again.

I'm not entirely sure if there is any other way to improve on this as we'd have to keep another "unofficial" list of permission requests to not bombard the user with the same one over and over again, but how would we know if he hasn't just repeated the action. (i.e. pressed "share my location" again).

How should we proceed? @liuche ?

[Amejia481]

The site in the original comment keeps sending permission requests to the user.

Before the fix for #14637 this would create an infinite number of permission request dialogs to the user, and checking "Remember decision for this site" wouldn't have solved the issue.

After the fix for #14637 only one dialog is displayed at once and checking "Remember decision for this site" prevents the site for asking for that permission again.

I'm not entirely sure if there is any other way to improve on this as we'd have to keep another "unofficial" list of permission requests to not bombard the user with the same one over and over again, but how would we know if he hasn't just repeated the action. (i.e. pressed "share my location" again).

How should we proceed? @liuche ?

I think this is an issue for the website developer to fix, as the site is requesting the permission over an over again even thought the permission was granted/denied, the same issue is reproducible on Firefox desktop. I think there is not much that we can do here, we can mark this a webcompat issue.

[Amejia481]

Also we can contact the website developers and suggest that they test their site on Firefox and do the improvements needed