Forum Discussion
josh_bodner
Microsoft
Apr 14, 2020Dev channel update to 83.0.478.5 is live
Hello insiders, today we’re releasing build 83.0.478.5 to the Dev channel. This is our Beta release candidate for major version 83, and since it’s also not that much newer than last week’s Dev channel build, it’s a relatively light week this week in terms of changes. Regarding known issues, we’ve made some fixes for high, constant CPU use in random extensions or tabs, but since there could be many possible causes, we’re still very interested in knowing places where people are still seeing it, especially if it can be consistently reproduced. We’ve also got a discussion going for anybody who’s been asking for the ability to keep your data in sync between Edge and Chrome: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/ongoing-sync-between-microsoft-edge-and-chrome-discussion/m-p/1297130. As for what’s new and worth mentioning:
Added features:
- Added the ability to select text and read aloud just the selection.
- Added the ability to add nicknames to payment cards that are stored for easy differentiation.
- Added support for websites to ask for permission to edit files on your device (not supported by all devices).
- Added support for importing data from Firefox using the Auto Import At First Run management policy.
- Added support for the DNS Over HTTPS Mode management policy from upstream Chromium.
Improved reliability:
- Fixed an issue where random renderer processes sometimes use high, constant amounts of CPU.
- Fixed an issue where closing a tab sometimes crashes the browser.
- Fixed an issue where closing a tab containing a PDF document sometimes crashes the browser.
- Fixed a crash on launch on Mac.
- Fixed an issue where attempting to report an unsafe website sometimes crashes the browser.
- Fixed an issue where using Picture-in-Picture mode to view a video sometimes crashes the browser.
- Fixed an issue where dragging an image into a Collection sometimes crashes the Collections pane.
Changed behavior:
- Changed the Passwords page in Settings to no longer show the number of characters in a password before being given permission to show the password itself.
- Fixed an issue where trying to copy data out of a form in a PDF sometimes copies text from the main PDF content instead if there’s any text highlighted at the time.
- Fixed an issue where PDFs are not automatically downloaded when the “Always Open PDF Externally” management policy is enabled.
- Improved detection of sites where payment information is submitted in order to offer better suggestions for when to save payment card info.
- Fixed an issue where attempting to manually import data from Firefox sometimes showed multiple Firefox entries.
- Fixed an issue where password autosuggest popups sometimes appear above the text box instead of below it.
- Fixed an issue where management policies that modify the new tab page break the setting to only show the Favorites Bar on the new tab page.
- Fixed an issue where signing into the browser with a Work or School account sometimes leads to work or school websites being blocked when they shouldn’t be.
- Fixed an issue where links that create IE mode tabs in new windows sometimes fail to create more tabs after the first in the new window.
Known issues:
- Some users are seeing favorites get duplicated after we made some previous fixes in that area. The most common way this is triggered is by installing the Stable channel of Edge and then signing into it with an account that has already signed into Edge before. Fixing this should be easier now that the deduplicator tool is available. However, we’ve also seen duplication happen when running the deduplicator on multiple machines before either machine has a chance to fully sync its changes, so while we wait for some of the fixes we’ve made to come to Stable, make sure to leave plenty of time in between runs of the deduplicator. We hope that this will be improved once version 81 is released to Stable.
- After an initial fix for it recently, some users are still experiencing Edge windows becoming all black. Opening the Browser Task Manager (keyboard shortcut is shift + esc) and killing the GPU process usually fixes it. Note that this only appears to affect users with certain hardware and is most easily triggered by resizing an Edge window.
- Some users are seeing “wobbling” behavior when scrolling using trackpad gestures or touchscreens, where scrolling in one dimension also causes the page to subtly scroll back and forth in the other. Note that this only affects certain websites and seems to be worse on certain devices. This is most likely related to our ongoing work to bring scrolling back to parity with Edge Legacy’s behavior, so if this behavior is undesirable, you can temporarily turn it off by disabling the edge://flags/#edge-experimental-scrolling flag.
- There are some issues where users with multiple audio output devices sometimes don’t get any sound from Edge. In one case, Edge becomes muted in the Windows Volume Mixer and unmuting it fixes it. In another, restarting the browser fixes it.
- At certain zoom levels, there is a noticeable line between the browser UI and the web contents.
We will most likely be releasing a small revision to this build later this week to make sure we’re perfectly in sync with all the changes from the Chromium project, and then next week, it’s on to version 84! Also, make sure you don’t miss our update to bring Stable to version 81.
- cfischer69Copper Contributor
josh_bodner High CPU is still a constant problem with Edge. One tab open, and four extensions, edge has 14 processes. CPU cooling fan runs all the time when Edge is open. And with more and more apps being replaced with PWAs, the situation is really untenable.
- wigsterIron Contributor
josh_bodner There are PDF improvements coming, which is great. But I haven't seen anywhere any discussion of a facing-pages (side-by-side) view. This is quite important for reading long docs on on a larger screen.
Can we be able to tell when a flag is set to default, what it means exactly? it's not known whether it means "enabled" or "disabled".
90% of the flags have default value and don't say whether it means enabled by default or disabled by default.
- g_keramidasBrass Contributor
just received 83.0.478.10 in dev and 81.0.416.58 in the official release version. no release notes
- NashizMBrass Contributor
New issue has started for me either in this build or the last. Randomly pages just won't load. I can try any website, but nothing will load. And previously open links also won't work anymore (ex. watching a youtube video, it won't buffer or load any more). Seems to happen multiple times a day as of today. The only fix is if I fully quit Edge and reopen it, then everything works fine again. But I can go to another browser, like Safari, and go to any site and it loads fine, while Edge is having the issue. Quitting Edge and reopening then gets things working again. Any idea what this could be? Very odd and a new issue for me!
Update to this: I noticed in the bottom left corner when this happens it shows processing request when it's attempting to load infinitely. Also if I open a page in incognito mode, it works fine. But to get the original browser working again I have to quit and re-open.
- Ed SparksIron Contributor
It would be great if you could address the ongoing frustration that is Controlled Feature Rollouts.
As a start if you could please indicate every time in these release notes when this applies, and to which markets or regions, etc.
Secondly please up the speed at which you then release these features, or better yet just can this entire concept for Dev and Canary builds.
We're here to test the browser and live on the cutting edge. Often these features get announced and don't show up for several weeks, if seemingly ever. By then they're often completely forgotten about and aren't well tested by the user community. It's still not clear what the point of this is in these testing release channels?
Thanks for the great work otherwise Edge Team!- josh_bodner
Microsoft
Ed Sparks in general, I try not to mention new features here in the release notes until they're turned on via code, and thus not with a controlled rollout. Or if there is a new feature only available via a controlled rollout, but it's something we want to make people aware of before everybody has it, I usually try to mention that it's under a rollout. Unfortunately, I quite often make mistakes, since I look primarily at code changes.
I think one thing that hasn't been communicated well, though, is just how important controlled rollouts are for assuring we don't regress any of our fundamentals: reliability, performance, etc. Often, when we introduce new code, it can have unforeseen consequences in completely unrelated areas, and having control populations to compare against is crucial for being able to quickly find and root-cause those issues. While it's our goal to only take a couple of weeks for this process, you're right that it often takes us longer before we enable the feature for everybody via code, so we have room for improvement there.
Ed Sparks wrote:It would be great if you could address the ongoing frustration that is Controlled Feature Rollouts.
As a start if you could please indicate every time in these release notes when this applies, and to which markets or regions, etc.
Secondly please up the speed at which you then release these features, or better yet just can this entire concept for Dev and Canary builds.
We're here to test the browser and live on the cutting edge. Often these features get announced and don't show up for several weeks, if seemingly ever. By then they're often completely forgotten about and aren't well tested by the user community. It's still not clear what the point of this is in these testing release channels?
Thanks for the great work otherwise Edge Team!Facts! Controlled Feature Rollouts might be a little helpful for the developers, just a little, but for the users which are the majority, it's frustrating and confusing. it's hard to use Edge insider channels as default browser, so then user has to set another browser as default and it will reduce the usage and thus the data and telemetry that is sent to Microsoft. so controlled feature rollouts have negative effects overall.
- TheGuruAUCopper Contributor
josh_bodner Added the ability to select text and read aloud just the selection.
The shortcut "Control + Shift + U" (that you see on the right click menu) reads everything and not just the selection.
- josh_bodner
Microsoft
TheGuruAU good find about the shortcut not changing for when you're just reading a selection. I'll make sure the team knows!
- Rui_PalhinhasCopper Contributor
There seems to be an issue with the latest update where the "start-up" setting is not being honoured by Edge - it always "continues where it left off" even if the setting is to open new tab or open a custom page.
- josh_bodner
Microsoft
Rui_Palhinhas I'm having trouble reproducing the startup behavior you mention. Is it possible you have another installation of Edge set to "continue where you left of", and that setting was synced?
- Rui_PalhinhasCopper Contributor
josh_bodner Thanks for looking into this - it must have been something weird with the machine I was using.
Today I've tested again (after updating to the latest Windows Insider build) and also on a different machine and both worked fine and as expected (new tab page instead of reopening the old tabs).
Just a glitch in the Matrix it seems...! 🙂
- przemocCopper Contributor
josh_bodner& rest of Edge team, thank you for taking Chromium and trying to create better UX based on it. Collections are nice. I'm waiting for Vertical Tabs, which will be hopefully customizable enough, with at least 2 modes (favicon only, favicon + title), 2 placementes (left, right), and optional quick search box at the top for easily finding right tab.
Is there any shortcut for adding page to the collection?
Having something like Ctrl+D but for Collections would be super handy.
(Currently opened collection should be the default target for such action.)
Please consider improving address bar for narrowing search results. I really like what Firefox has there:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplete-firefox#w_changing-results-on-the-fly
I'm not saying Edge needs to copy all of it, but at least making starting with % to limit searching only to currently opened tabs would be extremely welcomed. I don't understand why Chromium doesn't have such crucial feature built-in. If you have many tabs, it's impossible to work with Chrom* w/o additional extensions like Session Buddy or Quick Tabs.
Microsoft Edge Add-ons is far from being usable and trustful, sadly. No homepages, no list of permissions that extension will ask for, no screenshots, no way to find all extensions coming from one publisher, no publisher pages, very poor search, and so on. It's bad, makes it too easy for fake/unofficial extensions to proliferate. Not everyone is tech-savvy, so can easily misinstall wrong extension, e.g. this fake Violentmonkey instead of legit Violentmonkey (see Edge addons listing legit? #893 @ violentmonkey/violentmonkey). BTW type "monkey" in search and none of mentioned extensions will be shown...
Sorry for ending on such a harsh not, but extensions are vital part of browsers, so making Edge better than Chrome won't be enough in the grand scheme of things, Edge Add-ons page will need to be better than Chrome Web Store too. But don't feel discouraged. The bar is not set high, as Chrome Web Store has quite bad UX to begin with IMHO, so making something better shouldn't be that hard.
Please continue your work for making browsing experience better. It's much appreciated!
- josh_bodner
Microsoft
przemoc I've been having a discussion with the extensions team recently about some of the issues you mentioned, so this is very helpful, especially the violent monkey example.
- sgilderBrass Contributor
Apologies but I don't know when the feature was added:
- Search on new tabs uses search box or address bar
But if you leave the option to use the search box enabled is there a reason the search box uses bing over whatever other search engine you selected?
Thanks!