topic Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android? in Discussions

Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

LoKaa2 — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 06:53:15 GMT

I thought last week's Samsung update broke my phone or something over the last few days, but after trying Beta, Focus, and Nightly; I finally found a 2-week-old 133.0.3 Fennec build on F-Droid where it still works; so it can't be my phone after all.

Did you decide to remove this feature, or did it break in the 134.0 update? It was the app's most useful feature for browsing, imho.

I know you can tap the three dots and long-press the menu's arrows, but having to pause to check which of the two arrows isn't grayed out and thus clickable is such a flow killer compared to the global long-press action, and I've been constantly running into it since this change.

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

CharlieTed — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 08:55:59 GMT

@LoKaa2 wrote:
I thought last week's Samsung update broke my phone or something over the last few days, but after trying Beta, Focus, and Nightly; I finally found a 2-week-old 133.0.3 Fennec build on F-Droid where it still works; so it can't be my phone after all.

Did you decide to remove this feature, or did it break in the 134.0 update? It was the app's most useful feature for browsing, imho.

I know you can tap the three dots and long-press the menu's arrows, but having to pause to check which of the two arrows isn't grayed out and thus clickable is such a flow killer compared to the global long-press action, and I've been constantly running into it since this change.

Hi! It seems the long-press back button feature was removed in recent updates. While the three-dot menu with arrows is a workaround, it’s not as smooth as the previous method. I’d suggest sharing feedback with Mozilla, as they might consider bringing it back in future updates. Hope that helps!

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

LoKaa2 — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 20:54:19 GMT

Never mind, I found an older Nightly bug report for it https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1932300 , it just doesn't appear to have been addressed yet and moved on to Stable.

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

anon743 — Sat, 18 Jan 2025 10:11:03 GMT

Just discovered this very issue on the Note 10 Lite (up to Android 13). Long-pressing return ("back") button on bottom navigation bar no longer deploys the history on the very same page tab. To access history on that very tab you must go to the main Menu and long-press the left/right arrows. Problem is that the same thing happens to Chrome as well: long-pressing the bottom back (return) button results in no history showing up. Very, very annoying indeed!!

However, some older phones are not affected. I have these Samsung models and the problematic symptom does
NOT show up:
- Note 4 (Android 6.0.1)
- Note 9 (Android 10)
- XCover 5 (Android 11; yet to update to newer version esp. 13)

So what exactly is going on? Can someone please investigate??
Also pls spread this post to raise awareness of the issue concerned. Thx

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

billyswong — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 11:09:44 GMT

From the bug report, it looks like the bug came from an API en**bleep**tification of Android itself. The old API is gone in Android 15 and the new API doesn't support native detection of back button long-press. Thus devices older than Android 15 but have implemented the new API already are also affected.

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

anon743 — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 08:14:53 GMT

Read my post again.
In my case, only Android 13 is affected by this bug, but older systems like 11, 10 (and even down to 6.0.1) are NOT affected.

Also let me reiterate: this bug (ie. failure to deploy History upon longpressing "Back/Return" button on nav bar) does not only happen on FF but also on Chrome as well, under the very same OS circumstances (13 yes, 11 or earlier no).

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

billyswong — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 16:01:36 GMT

If you read carefully, I am *not* implying the bug only occurs in Android 15.

The latest development in the bug report ticket said they implemented a fix that works for Android 14+ using the new API, but Android 13 and maybe some Android 14 devices are still affected right now. Developers are investigating if adding an API conditional for Android 13 will be good enough to plug the hole.

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

tuxayo — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 20:07:49 GMT

> It seems the long-press back button feature was removed in recent updates.

Where did you find that?

That's not the impression I get from:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1932300

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1944817

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1946778

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

tuxayo — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 20:12:33 GMT

There seems to be hope: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1944817#c12

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

DeusExCalamus — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 09:18:31 GMT

I'm still seeing this, even using FF 136.0.1/FF 137 Beta. it works on my old tablet running Android 13.

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

russ — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 12:18:37 GMT

Is this related to the app or OS update?.

On a pixel 7 the latest update the back button doesnt show history now but also another app called xplore holding back takes you back to home but thats broken too, so its a system wide issue for me.

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

BobVul — Fri, 09 May 2025 11:17:16 GMT

There were several variations of this bug that ultimately resulted from Android API changes.

The original one under https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1932300 never affected Pixels and has had a workaround implemented. This was from a planned Android API change that affected Firefox in unexpected ways.

More recently we have https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1954845 that only seems to affect Pixels and seems to stem from the March OS update. As you've noticed, it's a broader issue than just Firefox and will require a fix from the Android side. This one appears to be a bug and not a planned change. The ticket on the Google issue tracker has recently been marked as fixed in an upcoming release but that does not appear to be out yet.

Re: Long-press back button no longer summons history on Android?

PhilippeMignard — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 12:44:14 GMT

On newer android versions, OnBackPressed is not working anymore. You must add a callback, and long press on the back button can't be managed.