New tab "Tiles" feature re-enabled after upgrade

After an upgrade from 5.0a3 to 5.0a4 on Linux, the browser.newtabpage.enhanced pref is still true somehow, even though we set it to false in the torbrowser prefs file. A fresh TBB 5.0a4 has the pref properly set to false on Linux.

See also #16316 (moved).

added GeorgKoppen201508R TorBrowserTeam201508R component::applications/tor browser owner::tbb-team priority::high resolution::fixed status::closed tbb-5.0 tbb-updater type::defect labels

I think the problem is that 5.0a3 sets browser.newtabpage.enhanced = true (as a user pref value) and there is no code that sets it back to false. I am not sure what we should do. We could add code to always reset it to false but maybe there is someone in the world who wants to use enhanced tiles in Tor Browser. Ideally we would reset the user pref one time after an upgrade from 5.0a3 to 5.0a4.

Oddly my 5.0a4 upgraded copy has this pref value true as a default pref value, not a user pref value. I'm not sure how that happened..

Replying to mikeperry:

Oddly my 5.0a4 upgraded copy has this pref value true as a default pref value, not a user pref value. I'm not sure how that happened..

I hate to ask, but are you sure you saw a default pref value? With the bad font and lack of bold on Linux, it is much harder to tell at a glance. When Kathy and I try it, we definitely see a "user set" value of true for browser.newtabpage.enhanced.

We are going to work on a patch that resets browser.newtabpage.enhanced to false one time (which means we may need to introduce another pref. to track whether we have reset the other one).

Here is a fix: https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/brade/tor-browser.git/commit/?h=bug16722-01&id=cf17fd2932a03fce517e0e1b1c25012acf63a588

Please review.

Trac:
Status: new to needs_review
Keywords: TorBrowserTeam201508 deleted, TorBrowserTeam201508R added

Trac:
Keywords: N/A deleted, GeorgKoppen201508R added

I attempted to create a general Torbutton pref flipping function for this kind of stuff (specifically #16730 (moved)), but resetting this newtab pref from there caused it to be completely ignored, even after restart! https://gitweb.torproject.org/mikeperry/torbutton.git/commit/?h=bug16730

Is there some reason why we need to flip this pref in the browser? I think I'd rather not clutter up our browser repo with such hacks as this, thats why I tried to do it in Torbutton.. But I have no idea why that is not working.

P.S. Mcs - you were right. The pref was a user value for me, but the lack of bold threw me.

Replying to mikeperry:

I attempted to create a general Torbutton pref flipping function for this kind of stuff (specifically #16730 (moved)), but resetting this newtab pref from there caused it to be completely ignored, even after restart! https://gitweb.torproject.org/mikeperry/torbutton.git/commit/?h=bug16730

Is there some reason why we need to flip this pref in the browser? I think I'd rather not clutter up our browser repo with such hacks as this, thats why I tried to do it in Torbutton..

Yeah, if we can avoid the browser repo that would be good.

But I have no idea why that is not working.

I guess this is due to

// Re-set the default in case the user clears the pref
        case this._observedPrefs.enhanced:
          this._setDefaultEnhanced();
          break;

in the observer.

Replying to gk:

I guess this is due to {{{ // Re-set the default in case the user clears the pref case this._observedPrefs.enhanced: this._setDefaultEnhanced(); break; }}} in the observer.

Scratch that, it seems I looked at the wrong code.

Okay. The problem seems to be that you still have the directoryLinks.json populated with all the crap once you start 5.0a3. And the data contained in it is then used in 5.0a4 even if you have set browser.newtabpage.enhanced to false. (that's my theory according to Tor Browser behavior and diffing the profiles of 5.0a3 and 5.0a4 once started, I need to doublecheck that in the code)

bug_16730 (https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/gk/torbutton.git/commit/?h=bug_16730&id=59ef74948aeea8d73f8833ab9e918cd1b70b6a32) contains my fixup and Mike's patch. Please review. The idea is basically to flip a pref back and forth in order to force a fetch operation which essentially overwrites the contents of directoryLinks.json resulting in the same state as a 5.04.

Replying to gk:

The idea is basically to flip a pref back and forth in order to force a fetch operation which essentially overwrites the contents of directoryLinks.json resulting in the same state as a 5.04.

Looks good to me (and nice hack). r=mcs

Fixed by commit 15abca4ad73aab6db7213c105888ecd079b3f8fe.

Trac:
Status: needs_review to closed
Resolution: N/A to fixed

closed

mentioned in issue #16730 (moved)

moved to tpo/applications/tor-browser#16722 (closed)