Blank page at start up in current Aurora and trunk nightlies

[Dan Kies]

... but in the current beta nightlies (2.20), I see my home page (preference set to home page at browser start), or the beta restores my tabs from the previous session (after prompting me if I want to save tabs when closing the browser).

Neither the trunk nightlies (2.22) nor the Aurora nightlies (2.21) act this way at start up or close for me. Just a blank tab at start, and no prompt to save tabs at shut down.

Probably, there is some change between the 2.20 branch and the 2.21 and 2.22 branches that explains this, but I can not find this information here or in bugzilla. Is it the introduction of private browsing (in 2.21)? Is there a new setting in 2.21+ of which I am unaware?

I appreciate your help understanding this.

[therube]

There is a bug they're working on related to Session Restore (& pages not restoring on startup).

Gather you've also verified that the situation persists in a new, clean Profile.

Private Browsing has been there for some time now, so shouldn't be affecting things.

I'm running Aurora & have not see any issue. The talk I saw mentioned all dealt with nightly, but then it could be I'm just not running into the bug on Aurora.

Bug 886116 - Port | Bug 698565 - stop excluding keys when calling JSON.stringify() and follow-ups | to SeaMonkey

[Dan Kies]

Thanks, therube! I should have remembered to start debugging there, and you set me on the right path. Ultimately, I discovered it was my theme that was preventing the restoring of tabs at browser start. (At least, the theme is part of the problem.) I am using a theme based on flyson's Breeze theme, updated by Lonquist (and myself). Switching to the default theme or Modern solved the problem. (Even an old copy of Pinball that I am maintaining for personal use still works.)

It was my theme based on Breeze that stopped working between SM 2.20 (works) and 2.21 (doesn't). I have been searching the use groups, this message board, bugzilla, and more without luck.

Bug 886116 looks like a possibility too. Thanks for that link. Still, if anyone can think of what change took place to break at least one theme, I would like to investigate further.

Cheers,

Dan

[Dan Kies]

Bug 886116 is now reported fixed (on 29 July). The fix did not help my problem. So something in my theme is either blocking session restore or my theme is lacking something to support session restore.

Does anyone see this problem with any other 3rd party theme?

[-Px-]

Is there anything in Error Console?

[Dan Kies]

Good thought, -Px-

What do you make of these warnings that appear in the Error Console?


Warning: SyntaxError: in strict mode code, functions may be declared only at top level or immediately within another function
Source File: chrome://navigator/content/fullScreen.js
Line: 57, Column: 19
Source Code:
function restoreAttr(attrName) {

Source File: chrome://navigator/content/navigator.js
Line: 1117, Column: 15
Source Code:
function webSearchCallback() {

Source File: chrome://communicator/content/tasksOverlay.js
Line: 91, Column: 13
Source Code:
function newWindowLoaded(event)

Source File: chrome://communicator/content/places/controller.js
Line: 536, Column: 15
Source Code:
function metaDataNodeMatches(metaDataNode, rules) {

Source File: chrome://communicator/content/places/controller.js
Line: 1081, Column: 17
Source Code:
function addData(type, index, overrideURI) {

Source File: chrome://communicator/content/places/controller.js
Line: 1086, Column: 17
Source Code:
function addURIData(index, overrideURI) {

Source File: chrome://communicator/content/places/controller.js
Line: 1139, Column: 17
Source Code:
function generateChunk(type, overrideURI) {

Source File: chrome://communicator/content/places/controller.js
Line: 1163, Column: 15
Source Code:
function addData(type, data) {

[patrickjdempsey]

Wild guess here... does your theme make use of bindings? It's possible that a binding you are using is conflicting with a recently landed feature causing the program to not do it's thing.

[-Px-]

Or it may be some add-on, try also Safe Mode

[patrickjdempsey]

Safe Mode is pretty useless for testing a specific theme/extension. One thing to try is a new profile with *only* the theme installed to make sure nothing else is causing it.

[Dan Kies]

Thank you for all these suggestions. I will try them as soon as I have some time to troubleshoot. The bindings idea was something I was thinking about too. It could be an existing binding needs updating for new features, or new bindings have been added into SM 2.21+ and I didn't notice.

Much appreciated.

[-Px-]

Neil pointed me to another stupid mistake in Bug 886116, so it need 1 more patch to fix, patch already reviewed and waiting for check-in

[therube]

AFAIK, what I was told, this should be working properly, now.
(I didn't actually look myself, yet.)

[Dan Kies]

Testing today's trunk nightly, that bug fix did not solve my problem. I had a chance to look for some missing or misconfigured bindings, but that did not solve the problem either. I am guessing it must be something in a .css file. So, for me, the search continues.

[therube]

As a test, try a new, clean Profile & see if the situation persists there.

[Dan Kies]

After carefully comparing directories and files, I finally found the source of my problem. It was missing bindings after all, as patrickjdempsey suggested. A missing communitorBindings.xml to be exact.