New issue
Advanced search Search tips
Note: Color blocks (like or ) mean that a user may not be available. Tooltip shows the reason.

Issue 850707 link

Starred by 3 users

Issue metadata

Status: WontFix
Owner:
Last visit > 30 days ago
Closed: Aug 6
Cc:
Components:
EstimatedDays: ----
NextAction: ----
OS: Chrome
Pri: 2
Type: Bug



Sign in to add a comment

Browser History Policy does not sync completely after sign out/sign in

Project Member Reported by ykrychala@google.com, Jun 7 2018

Issue description

ChromeOS version: 65.0.3325.209 
ChromeOS device model: HP Chromebook 11 G5 / HP Chromebook 11-vxxx 
Case#: 15576767

Description:
- Customer Browser History on is not functioning properly. 
- Customer set the browsing history to always save and disable the option to clear the browsing history. 
- Once the user sign out and sign back in on the device some of the sites that they visit are missing and some remaining. 
- Customer mentioned that they block google as search engine and use bing to control the string for search 

Steps to reproduce: 
1. Sign in to the Admin Console. 
2. Go to Device Management > Chrome Management > User Settings 
3. Check the settings for Browser History, Clear Browser History and verified that the history was set to always save browser history and Clear Browser History was set to do not allow clearing history in the settings menu. 
4. Sign in to Chromebook
5. Visit some sites
6. Check that all sites in chrome://history are present
7. Sign out and sign back in to Chromebook

Current Behavior / Reproduction: 
Browser History is not accurate when they sign out and sign back in on the device 

Expected Behavior: 
Browser history should be there and complete even though they sign out and sign back in on the device since history was sync on their users 

Troubleshooting steps taken: 
- Already tried to reset the user profile and still same issue. 
- Verified that the user sync settings was set to sync all 
- Customer verified that this function is working fine before and suddenly they notice that the browsing history is not functioning. 
- Customer notice that if they set the user data disable the Browser History will remain even though they sign out and sign in on the device 
- Since it is working fine before and the User data was always enable on their students, what could have been change and since the browser history is sync on their profile this should sync on the user profile not on the local data of device and Google Chrome Sync is turn on on their students. 
- tried to wait 10-15 minutes in idle before signing out - same issue

Is this reproducible in Beta/Dev? Beta 
Is this reproducible in Incognito? Yes 

Existing Workaround: If they set the User Data disable the Browser History will save on the Chromebook, however this is not a better solutions since it is working fine before and the device was shared to their users. 

Drive link to logs: 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=179eI20oW1CZKC_qR9kRpahiE82Pa9G8I

policies:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=10xuwT-Ie9mo7wr42-ZuO-whVyQ6Ov0aX

Sample S/N:
S/N 8CG7100V01

Screenshots:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PX3lTt6kEwUNIwzSeWRsYJCBhX9PB3IF (before signing out)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ROXzMlA3gAkQwSH9Y4kXQWDlyFV28Bi1 (after signing back in)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1h-nQvJ1dcEnXO0m31aDgpLP4mcNnbEb6
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_gMU4-9MFTflHW5qloebMHKvnF-pPrgQ
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eSwDJq2E-ZXmey4rDAZpqOTKLV2NWktk
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1b2ZUeFVtCaXCy9ziWWx4cn5kTdPvIIRZ

 
Components: UI>Browser>History Services>Sync

Comment 2 by mamir@chromium.org, Jun 15 2018

Owner: pastarmovj@chromium.org
Assigning to pastarmovj who has experience in Sync+Enterprise stuff for confirmation.

Comment 3 by mamir@chromium.org, Jun 15 2018

Status: Assigned (was: Unconfirmed)
Cc: atwilson@chromium.org
Components: Enterprise
Adding the enterprise label and atwilson for visibility.

I don't think I should own this but can help route it to the proper team at least. To do this though I need to understand what does "Customer notice that if they set the user data disable the Browser History will remain". What is the "user data disable" can you provide a screenshot or describe what does this mean. I doubt this issue has to do with the enterprise settings but let's first understand the issue better.
Cc: pastarmovj@chromium.org
Owner: tschumann@chromium.org
This is (unfortunately) working as intended. They have ephemeral users enabled, so they are relying on Chrome Sync to sync browsing data between sessions. We do not sync full history to my knowledge - just typed URLs. So if they are hoping to get 100% of their history synced - it's not what we do.

Redirecting to tschumann@ because my sync-fu is several years old and maybe we actually do sync more than typed URLs these days?

One thing that's a bit confusing is that the sync UI just shows "History" which doesn't reflect any of the subtleties around exactly what part of history we sync.
Cc: mastiz@chromium.org
+mastiz to keep me honest.

That's right, we do not sync the complete history. The history sync design is still based on tab sync which happens every 10 seconds. If a tab was opened only briefly, it won't be included. There are more corner cases. Typed URLs are indeed treated differently and will be synced immediately.

ykrychala@, would this explain your not-synced visits in your history?
I hope it would be enough for the customer. Me or T1 will communicate with them and provide that explanation. Are there other ways to keep history synced as much as possible so just a minor difference can be noticed?

Comment 8 by jayhlee@google.com, Jun 18 2018

Yury, please explain to customer that browser history is for personal user usage and is not intended as a means for tracking user browsing habits. They should use a central proxy or extension solution like GoGuardian for that.
All right, I'll explain that to customer.
Status: WontFix (was: Assigned)
As per #5 I think this bug can be closed.

Sign in to add a comment