history not always being recorded under about:history on certain websites

[kjozwiak]

Description

On certain websites, the history isn't always being added/recorded under about:history when browsing within that specific website. The initial origin is logged, but anything else within that website won't be logged. However, if you open a page from that specific website in a new tab, the history will correctly be logged in about:history.

Steps to Reproduce

Example 1:

1. visit https://www.motorsport.com
2. check about:history and you'll notice the entry being added correctly
3. browse through the website by clicking on a few articles, other categories etc..
4. visit about:history and you'll notice that entries haven't been added
5. open a few articles in a new tab, and visit about:history (you'll notice the entries appearing)

Example 2:

1. visit https://www.youtube.com and click through several videos
2. check about:history and you'll notice that there's only one YouTube entry
3. visit https://www.youtube.com and open several videos in new tabs
4. visit about:history and you'll notice that the entries are correctly being added

Actual result:

Expected result:

History should always be recorded under about:history when browsing a website.

Reproduces how often:

100% reproducible using the above STR.

Brave Version

about:brave info:

Brave: 0.22.8 
V8: 6.5.254.41 
rev: 3ae27f2cf188b50ff64877a0968361d625fb84ca 
libchromiumcontent: 65.0.3325.181
Muon: 5.1.2 
OS Release: 17.4.0 
Update Channel: Beta 
OS Architecture: x64 
OS Platform: macOS 
Node.js: 7.9.0 
Brave Sync: v1.4.2 

Reproducible on current live release:

Yes, currently reproducible under 0.21.24 19c78a1 which is the latest release.

Additional Information

• Ubuntu 17.10.1 x64 - Reproduced
• macOS 10.13.3 x64 - Reproduced
• Win 10 x64 - Reproduced

@bsclifton also reproduced this on his machine using macOS.

[mon369]

Hi, I would like to work on this bug as part of my college course.
I have also reproduced this issue while reading some tennis news in this website: ATP World Tour

This is my Brave version:
Brave: 0.22.0
V8: 6.5.254.41
rev: 56f9e72
Muon: 5.1.2
OS Release: 10.0.16299
Update Channel: Release
OS Architecture: x64
OS Platform: Microsoft Windows
Node.js: 7.9.0
Brave Sync: v1.4.2
libchromiumcontent: 65.0.3325.181

[srirambv]

Watching YT videos in a single tab doesn't add all the video links in history. It only adds one entry for the first page visited in the tab. Subsequent page loads of same domain are not listed. However opening a new video in a new tab adds it to the history list. #3848 fix could be the root problem here.

[kjozwiak]

We should really look into this issue and see if we can get a fix for this milestone. IMO, not correctly adding the users history into about:history is a pretty bad bug, especially when it affects websites like YT as @srirambv mentioned above. It makes it very hard for a user to go back and search for something specific in about:history. The only time we shouldn't be adding entries into the history is when a user users PB.

[bsclifton]

In Muon, the navigation_handle (passed into the WebContent's DidFinishNavigation method) is returning true when IsSameDocument() is called. Muon then emits a did-navigate-in-page event which does not log a new history entry (opposed to did-navigate which would)

When the user is browsing, the href portion of the URL is the same:
https://www.youtube.com/watch

When the navigation type value is determined, it's not taking the query portion into account. Looking at Google Chrome's history, every value is always recorded. For example:

1. In tab 1, visit https://maps.google.com
2. In tab 2, open chrome://history/ and you should see one entry for maps.google.com
3. Switch back to tab 1 and zoom out. Notice the URL change
4. Switch back to tab 2 and hit refresh. Notice there are now two entries

To fix this bug, we'd need to revert the inPageNav (browser-laptop) portion of #10005. This would basically re-open #3848

Will share with team and discuss which would be a better option

[bsclifton]

Discussed with team- we're not going to address this as we'll get the fix for free when moving to the direct fork of Chromium (see https://github.com/brave/brave-browser)

More details available here:
https://brave.com/development-plans-for-upcoming-release/