User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.12; rv:49.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/49.0 Build ID: 20160916101415 Steps to reproduce: Sorry I don't have repro steps and understand this is a bummer. Details below. Actual results: Firefox 49 (also happened in 48, unsure about earlier versions) keeps forgetting the keywords I set for certain searches. Sometimes just one search is affected, othertimes several, never all. In about:preferences#search I set the keywords like yt for a youtube search (which imo should be included as a default btw, but that's another story). I keep using the keywords for a few weeks and then out of the blue they are gone. So far I was unable to determine a pattern behind this, but today it happened again and after brief IRC chat with QA I'm filing this bug. Expected results: Firefox should not forget the keywords I setup.

This is reproducible: 1. open Firefox 49, set keyword for search 2. close FF 3. open Firefox nightly 4. close FF nightly 5. open FF 49 → keyword is gone Tried this 4-5 times and it's reproducible. Both versions of Firefox are using the same profile.

We had one similar bug (bug 1274545) where we were sometimes losing user-set keywords, but it's been fixed for Firefox 49 and later. (In reply to steve-_- from comment #1) > This is reproducible: > > 1. open Firefox 49, set keyword for search > 2. close FF > 3. open Firefox nightly > 4. close FF nightly > 5. open FF 49 > > → keyword is gone > > Tried this 4-5 times and it's reproducible. Both versions of Firefox are > using the same profile. I followed these steps and couldn't reproduce. I tried with the youtube search plugin from: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-10423/

Thanks for trying to reproduce. Interesting you were unable to do so. This is FF49 here on macOS 10.12 if that matters. Other search keywords that go missing are ebay, leo eng-deu and wikipedia (de).

Are you using the same locale of Firefox for the release build and the nightly build?

FF49 is german locale and nightly is the default english.

"ebay, leo eng-deu and wikipedia (de)" all seem to be search plugins that wouldn't exist on an en-US nightly.

Would they? why would a dictionary english to german not exist? also apart from the question of existance, why should the keywords then be killed? we do agree, that that is unwanted behavior, no matter what language a nightly build may be used in, no?

(In reply to steve-_- from comment #7) > Would they? why would a dictionary english to german not exist? also apart > from the question of existance, why should the keywords then be killed? At least for ebay (where I assume you get a German specific version) and wikipedia, the search plugin isn't the same, so the keyword can't be kept. Keywords are saved as metadata of search plugins, if the search plugin doesn't exist, we can't keep metadata attached to it in the profile. > we do agree, that that is unwanted behavior, no matter what language a > nightly build may be used in, no? Not yet as I haven't been able to reproduce and see the exact behavior. It seems you have lost keywords for - engines that don't exist on both locales. In which case it's "expected" the the keyboard are lost. (I'm not saying this is great, but it's the implemented behavior). - engines that you installed yourself. We identified and fixed one case of this for Firefox 49 in bug 1274545.

I am still unsure I understand the logic that applies here. Why should a german Wikipedia search not exist in an english locale and vice versa? I use wikipedia a lot and I use both languages all the time. so why not have wp for wikipedia in my native tongue and wpe for english wikipedia? OK, maybe once we figure out what the actual desired behavior is, we can write that down and consider that a feature request probably.

(In reply to steve-_- from comment #9) > Why should a > german Wikipedia search not exist in an english locale and vice versa? Are you asking why we don't ship a German Wikipedia search plugin in the English locale? > I use wikipedia a lot and I use both languages all the time. so why not have > wp for wikipedia in my native tongue and wpe for english wikipedia? That's not a problem. But if you keep switching back and forth between builds where one of these plugins is a built-in one, I'm not surprised some metadata gets lost. It would be more interesting to focus on the issue you had with a Youtube plugin (or any specific other plugin you are sure you installed yourself). Can you reproduce it with Firefox 49, or did that only happen with previous releases?

(In reply to steve-_- from comment #9) > I am still unsure I understand the logic that applies here. Why should a > german Wikipedia search not exist in an english locale and vice versa? Because Firefox in German comes with Wikipedia in German by default and the English one with Wikipedia in English. You can install search engines for Wikipedia in other languages by e.g. opening https://de.wikipedia.org/ and clicking the magnifying glass with the plus sign in the search bar. User-installed search engines should be kept if you switch between Firefox in different languages (but there can be naming conflicts with search engines which are built in).

Here's another attempt at trying to explain why I think the current behavior should be considered buggy and be fixed. I re-downloaded the Firefox nightly build, this time in de locale from https://www.mozilla.org/de/firefox/channel/desktop/#nightly. The problem does not persist using the de nightly build, so Sebastian is right claiming it is related to the different locales of the different channel builds I was using. I'd still consider the current behavior a bug because - Wikipedia (in german) ≠ Wikipedia (in english), so those search entries should not be replacable. Instead it should be two different search entries. - both entires should peacefully co-exist, using Wikipedia in more than one language is a totally legit use-case - keyboard shortcuts for any search entries should never be removed, no matter in what locale a certain version of firefox is installed (no matter what channel) Sebastian said: "User-installed search engines should be kept if you switch between Firefox in different languages (but there can be naming conflicts with search engines which are built in)" I don't understand that part. Isn't that then a bug? Everything is fine with provide a few default search engines. But if the users changes those, i.e. remove two, add another three and add keyboard shortcuts, those changes must be respected and kept (and not be overwritte with other defaults due to name clashing). plug in or not, that's the technical implementation / naming, but it should not matter to the user and it should not tamper with decisions the user has made for their browsing experience. Regardless of locale the installed Firefox is in. As soon as the same profile is used for the build, any search adjustment should stick. Thoughts? If you agree, I'd appreciate this being confirmed. If more questions are open and other aspects should be elaborated on in greater details, do let me know.

so this only happens for non-en-us?

From what I understand, this happens when the same profile is being used in different channel versions with varying locales. So if your stable is us and nightly is german you may see the problem (I have not tested that scenario). My scenario was de (stable) us (nightly).

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, NI for questions) from comment #13) > so this only happens for non-en-us? Right. The only case I'm aware of where we lost keywords in an en-US-only situation was bug 1274545, fixed for Firefox 49.

(In reply to Florian Quèze [:florian] from comment #15) > ... > Right. The only case I'm aware of where we lost keywords in an en-US-only > situation was bug 1274545, fixed for Firefox 49. Steve do you still see this issue in newer versions?

@wayne mery: thanks for looking into this. Tried reproducing using Firefox 63.0.3 and 65.0a1. 1. open Firefox 63.0.3, set keyword for search 2. close FF 3. open Firefox nightly 4. close FF nightly 5. open FF 63.0.3 → Keywords are fine. Close this report as invalid as the original problem no longer is reproducible.

Closed this one too early. Steps to reproduce: - open Firefox (any version) (DE LOCALE) - set keyword for wikipedia (de) an LEO Eng-Deu (screenshot 1 FF 64) - open Firefox Nightly 65.0a1 (2018-12-08) (64-bit) (US LOCALE) → search keywords gone Florian Quèze already discovered: "It seems you have lost keywords for - engines that don't exist on both locales. In which case it's "expected" the the keyboard are lost. (I'm not saying this is great, but it's the implemented behavior). - engines that you installed yourself. We identified and fixed one case of this for Firefox 49 in bug 1274545." I am loosing keywords for many searches. Three examples: - Wikipedia (de) - LEO Eng-Deu - Amazon.de Nightly builds are not available in de locale it seems. So should users be warned about this? I still don't get why Firefox removes info that users decided to enter. If the user enters such info, changes are high, they intentionally did so. So why work against your users and keep removing that info? That doesn't seem a smart thing to do. If that in turn means, default search management has to be altered, maybe that's something to consider. Especially if nightly is only available in english. Maybe this scenario is too much of an edge case to spend time on it. If development department thinks this is good user experience, so be it. In which case, let's close this bug and I'll try to remember about it next time I loose my search keywords. But I'd prefer that Firefox does not remove searches a user uses and has set keywors for. Even if they install Firefox in a different locale. Those keywords were set, because the user wants to work with those searches. Why not keep those searches and add the new locale searches. The user can then always remove unneeded searches in Firefox > Preferences.

(In reply to steve-_- from comment #18) > Closed this one too early. > > Steps to reproduce: > > - open Firefox (any version) (DE LOCALE) > - set keyword for wikipedia (de) an LEO Eng-Deu (screenshot 1 FF 64) > - open Firefox Nightly 65.0a1 (2018-12-08) (64-bit) (US LOCALE) > → search keywords gone Using the same Firefox profile for various versions of Firefox is likely to cause trouble, not just with search keywords. Usually upgrading is well tested, but downgrading receives less testing attention. We usually try to avoid breaking it, but bugs may occur in edge cases. There are people working on making Nightly use a different profile by default, to avoid these kind of bugs. > Nightly builds are not available in de locale it seems. I'm not sure what makes you think it's not available, https://www.mozilla.org/de/firefox/channel/desktop/ seems to have a download link for a de Nightly.

The problem is not with nightly / beta / stable switching (I understand this *can* be a problem) but in this case it is not. I am switching between de stable 64 and nightly 66a1 with no problem. As long as Firefox uses the same locale, no search keywords are lost. So I assume it is behaving as expected, when removing keywords when a different locale is used, in which case RESOLVED INVALID is correct.