GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 795807
Preferences and Firefox Sync verification prompt locks background windows
Last modified: 2018-08-03 21:29:15 UTC
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/epiphany/+bug/1769192 The GNOME Web/Epiphany Web Browser 'Preferences' screen locks onto the foreground, forbidding any action in the background web browser windows. This is not generally an issue until/unless the user wants to set up the Firefox Sync service, located within Preferences, which in turn requires a verification link sent via email to be opened up within the browser. If the user does not have another browser installed and/or an email client with built-in browser set up, the user is forced into downloading, installing, and using another browser temporarily to sign in. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04 Package: epiphany (not installed) ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-20.21-lowlatency 4.15.17 Uname: Linux 4.15.0-20-lowlatency x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME Date: Fri May 4 11:39:46 2018 InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-05-01 (3 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180426) ProcEnviron: PATH=(custom, no user) XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set> LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash SourcePackage: epiphany UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) Attachment: ProcCpuInfoMinimal.txt - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/epiphany/+bug/1769192/+attachment/5133840/+files/ProcCpuinfoMinimal.txt
Yeah, this is quite a problem. I never noticed because I don't use webmail. There's also bug #794352, which is a bit different, but related. I have absolutely no clue what we're going to need to do to solve these. The preferences dialog does need to remain modal (i.e. it needs to keep the rest of the browser "locked") because that's a common pattern in GNOME and all sorts of weird bugs occur when using non-modal dialogs. We might need to give up on having a separate web view for configuring Sync. It's caused other bugs in the past, as well.
(In reply to Michael Catanzaro from comment #1) > We might need to > give up on having a separate web view for configuring Sync. Well, this is surely going to be the solution... we just need to figure out what the workflow is going to look like without the separate web view.
@Jeb Eldridge, you are free to close the Preferences dialog and confirm the Firefox sign-in on email from inside an Epiphany tab. On Epiphany's end, the sign-in will complete in background regardless of the Preferences dialog being open or not. You'll notice that the login has completed the next time you open the preferences dialog and switch to the Sync tab, at which point you can customize your sync experience, e.g. what collections to sync, sync frequency, etc. Still, maybe we should add a message or something to inform the users that the preferences dialog can be safely closed to confirm the sign-in, since the modal window may be a bit intimidating.
In light of this, I'll lower the severity. But yeah, what I would be thinking is: "I bet if I close the preferences dialog now, I'll never be able to successfully sign in to Sync"
In the context of bug 794352, this caveat can be fixed by clicking the "open GMail and friends" button. However, for email providers that are not popular enough so that Firefox would automatically generate an open-webmail button inside the iframe, I guess we'd still need a way to inform the users that the Preferences dialog can be safely closed to do the email verification.
Well, you've now fixed this for the case of major webmail providers. And I assume most people who aren't using a major webmail provider probably use a mail client, in which case this isn't a problem at all. But yes, there's certainly still room to improve the user experience in this case.
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message -- This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity. You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/epiphany/issues/468.