Restart button starts wrong profile when running multiple

[era]

I have two instances of Firefox running with different extensions, different default window size, different preferences, etc.

I have found that when Firefox requires a restart (such as when the Ubuntu Firefox package receives an upgrade, or when I have installed an extension which requires it), the "Restart" button does not work correctly in the secondary instance. Instead, it will close the secondary instance, and start a new empty window in the primary instance.

Steps to repro:

1. Run your regular Firefox
2. Start a second Firefox by running

    firefox -ufnord -profileManager &

Create a new profile, populate it with some settings to distinguish it from your primary instance (window size? web developer tools? experimental extensions?)

3. Receive an uprade to Firefox, or install an extension which requires a reboot. For the latter case, I found that e.g. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/hide-tab-bar-with-one-tab/ does that.

4. When Firefox displays a Restart button at the top of your browser window, press it

Expected outcome:

The secondary instance closes, then restarts with the same settings (same profile)

Actual outcome:

A new empty window in the primary instance is spawned.

Workaround:

Run firefox -ufnord -profileManager & again and select the profile you want.

(The -ufnord is a known bug; I'm too lazy to dig it up, but it's been there like forever.)

xvbvntv$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS
Release: 12.04

xvbvntv$ apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
  Installed: 23.0+build2-0ubuntu0.12.04.1
  Candidate: 23.0+build2-0ubuntu0.12.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 23.0+build2-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 0
        500 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://mirrors.nic.funet.fi/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     11.0+build1-0ubuntu4 0
        500 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

era,

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. You reported this bug some time ago and there have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time. Your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates.

It would help us a lot if you could test on a currently supported Ubuntu version. When you test it and it is still an issue, kindly upload the updated logs by running only once in a terminal:

apport-collect 1214846

and add any additional information that you think relevant. Alternatively, please confirm that this is no longer a problem and that we can close the report. If we do not hear from you this bug report will close itself in approximately 60 days time.

Thank you again for helping make Ubuntu better.

Paul White
[Ubuntu Bug Squad]

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Upstream bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1473203 may be related

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Bug did not expire due bug watch
Upstream report is still open but not confirmed
No reply from reporter
So closing as no-one else affected

@era, please feel free to re-open if problem seen again