[browser] can't make browser forget open pages

[Selene ToyKeeper]

After killing the browser app, each subsequent restart will open it with the same set of pages open. In theory this might be a nice feature, but it's kind of a problem if one of those pages causes the browser to crash or lock up. The browser app then becomes unusable without manually removing its config.

Could we make it ask on launch whether to re-open previous pages, and let the user choose to start fresh if desired?

I've noticed this a lot lately, but the specific version I'm using now is from rtm krillin image 33.

-- SOLUTION --
1) If a crash happens, the browser will have an error page on restart, rather than the page the caused the crash.
2) If user wants, he will be able to reload the page (and potentially crash the browser again).
Design here:
https://docs.google.com/a/canonical.com/presentation/d/1Qrd4Flfs3EH-fI79IfrYgLdAx2nce-L7ve8NKLCX324/edit#slide=id.g3c37ea932_70

Note: All the other tabs should persist.

Note: The above solution does not address the common use case of "I want a fresh, empty browser instance", or "I want to choose whether to restore my session", which is what many people seem to want.

[David Barth (dbarth)]

The issue is related to the session saver code.

This is worked on as part of that other issue as well: https://bugs.launchpad.net/webbrowser-app/+bug/1362543

We have a branch in silo to resolve the issue.

[Bill Filler (bfiller)]

unduping this, as it is a different issue from 1362543

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

This is the intended behaviour.

The situation where one of the open pages makes the browser crash is a problem indeed. That’s not a solution in itself, but if you can reproduce such crashes, please file bugs for them.

[Bill Filler (bfiller)]

adding a design task here.
@giorgio
please comment if you think we should support this use case and how the UI should behave

[Giorgio Venturi (giorgio-venturi-deactivatedaccount)]

I would suggest that if a crash happens, the browser should have an error page on restart, rather than the page the caused the crash. If user wants, he should be able to reload the page (and potentially crash the browser again).

All the other tabs should persist.

@olivier is this doable?

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

That would be the ideal solution indeed. We would need a new API in oxide to signal the application that the renderer process crashed (this is tracked as bug #1375272).

[Selene ToyKeeper (toykeeper)]

Just curious... wouldn't it be easier and friendlier to simply ask the user on startup whether they want to restore their session? It's already well-established behavior for browsers, and it provides an easy way for the user to decide the matter instead of trying to make the browser too smart for its own good.

Our current interface doesn't really make it obvious that there are other tabs open, so asking on startup could alert the user to the presence of a tab feature and prevent them from accumulating more and more tabs over time without noticing. For example, if I'm browsing the web for an hour and I click a few links here and there, I can easily accumulate a dozen open tabs with no indication that there is more than one open. Then I close the app when I'm done. Next time I open the browser, it goes unresponsive for a curiously long time before I can do anything with it, because it's loading invisible tabs in the background.

Usually if I pull out my phone browser while I'm out of the house, I just want to look something up really quick then put it away again, but there is currently no way to do that if it remembers all the old tabs on launch. I'd rather not wait for it to load a dozen old tabs before I can look up what I wanted. But it's still nice to have the option to remember the session once in a while, so it'd be nice if the app would ask.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

> […] could alert the user to the presence of a tab feature

As far as I know all modern browsers have tabs, it’s a well-understood feature that people expect to find in a browser, not some exotic functionality.

> […] I can easily accumulate a dozen open tabs with no indication
> that there is more than one open.

This will be addressed by adding a visual transition to signal that a new tab is being open (see bug #1351205).

> […] Next time I open the browser, it goes unresponsive for a curiously
> long time before I can do anything with it, because it's loading
> invisible tabs in the background.

That’s incorrect: only the current tab is being loaded at startup. Other tabs are loaded on demand, only when the user activates them. If the browser is unresponsive at startup, that’s a different issue (please file a bug).

[Selene ToyKeeper (toykeeper)]

One more reminder that it's a lot friendlier to ask the user if they want to restore the session or not... because most of the time the current behavior is the opposite of what I want, and it's obnoxious to manually close a bunch of open tabs one at a time whenever I start the browser.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Closing the issue, as there is now a setting to choose whether to restore the last session (on by default).