Blank, black screen when trying to view the Top Sites panel in Customization on the new-tab page (NTP)

[stephendonner]

edit: this affects Universal builds on Intel macOS only, due to the way we create the Universal app and replace the Intel resources with the arm64 resources where the file names are a little different due to build paths. #38437

Description

Blank, black screen when trying to view the Top Sites panel in Customization on the new-tab page (NTP)

Found while testing #37110

Steps to Reproduce

1. install 1.66.80 - has to be Universal app build on an intel mac
2. launch Brave
3. open a new-tab page
4. click on Customize at the bottom (but don't yet enable Brave News)
5. now, click Top Sites

Actual result:

Blank, black screen

screenshot	in dev tools' console

Expected result:

Customize Dashboard remains, focused on the chosen panel, Top Sites

Reproduces how often:

100%

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave	1.66.80 Chromium: 124.0.6367.29 (Official Build) beta (x86_64) 
Revision	2d822a1940c9159c1f307cd1c0a8f58fcfb50fe0
OS	macOS Version 11.7.10 (Build 20G1427)

Version/Channel Information:

• Can you reproduce this issue with the current release? No
• Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel? Yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel? No

cc @fallaciousreasoning @petemill @rebron @brave/qa-team

[fallaciousreasoning]

So this doesn't repro for me in 1.66.80 in Linux. However, we've been seeing a few of these ChunkLoadErrors which is worrying me a bit. I wonder what's causing them.

[fallaciousreasoning]

It seems like it could be a caching error, but I'm not sure. Does it repro in another profile?

[stephendonner]

It seems like it could be a caching error, but I'm not sure. Does it repro in another profile?

Reproduces 100% in a clean profile, for me.

[sangwoo108]

On my mac, both beta and nightly works well.

[fallaciousreasoning]

I'm worried it's a build/installer problem. Does reinstalling the same version change anything @stephendonner?

[fallaciousreasoning]

Hmmm, still works for me - that would've been a neat solution though. Does it work for you when you remove it?

It'd be weird though, 'cause I don't think extensions can run on chrome:// urls

[fallaciousreasoning]

I wonder if this could be related to the React 18 upgrade

[sangwoo108]

Yeah, it works for me with the theme(Nightly)

[sangwoo108]

@stephendonner I'm cuirous what you see when you type "chrome://newtab/314.chunk.js" to the location bar? And also curios if you're uising intel mac or arm

[stephendonner]

@sangwoo108 here you go, thanks for asking!

@stephendonner I'm cuirous what you see when you type "chrome://newtab/314.chunk.js" to the location bar? And also curios if you're uising intel mac or arm

Intel macOS-x64, Big Sur:

Brave | 1.66.82 Chromium: 124.0.6367.60 (Official Build) beta (x86_64)
-- | --
Revision | 5dc8a11fe47f7e764f9108c665f3276805497669
OS | macOS Version 14.5 (Build 23F5059e)

[sangwoo108]

Interesting, I'm not sure it should be same but my beta returns different source for the address. I've checked using my arm machine. I'll try checking using intel mac and let you know

[sangwoo108]

Gotcha! On my intel machine, it was reproducible. I suspect something was wrong while rolling out the beta. Maybe webpack dependency? But not sure who can look into this. (Niglty works fine)

[fallaciousreasoning]

Going to be interesting to see what happens when the new Beta comes out. Hopefully this just disappears?

[stephendonner]

Going to be interesting to see what happens when the new Beta comes out. Hopefully this just disappears?

Happens with the latest nightly

Brave	1.67.23 Chromium: 124.0.6367.60 (Official Build) nightly (x86_64) 
Revision	2574e866fb941a93ad6414bb02563c9ecb9fa9d5
OS	macOS Version 11.7.10 (Build 20G1427) 

too 😢

[fallaciousreasoning]

@sangwoo108 does this happen in Dev for you on your Intel mac?

[sangwoo108]

I checked but my dev version was okay. We're asking folks about the build machine here https://bravesoftware.slack.com/archives/C01EVLWS8R5/p1713744910635809

[LaurenWags]

Discussed this issue with @stephendonner @MadhaviSeelam and added release/blocking and put it in the 1.66.x milestone as this doesn't reproduce on 1.65.x. We should resolve prior to releasing 1.66.x. cc @rebron @kjozwiak for visibility and in case you feel differently - we can adjust labels/milestone 👍🏻

[fallaciousreasoning]

@stephendonner not sure but can we get a build artifact from https://ci.brave.com/job/test-brave-browser-build-macos-x64/1189/ and see if it repros?

(built on the same machine)

[stephendonner]

@stephendonner not sure but can we get a build artifact from https://ci.brave.com/job/test-brave-browser-build-macos-x64/1189/ and see if it repros?

(built on the same machine)

Asked in https://bravesoftware.slack.com/archives/C61QQMWS3/p1714498857856599

[stephendonner]

@fallaciousreasoning Tested using https://build-artifacts.brave.com/test-brave-browser-build-macos-x64/1189/Brave-Browser-Nightly-x64.dmg

Cannot reproduce using:

Big Sur 11.7.10

Brave	1.67.29 Chromium: 124.0.6367.60 (Official Build) nightly (x86_64)
Revision	87978a973dbc82c83fc1f20ab9ec943862c388ed
OS	macOS Version 11.7.10 (Build 20G1427)

Sonoma 14.5

Brave	1.67.29 Chromium: 124.0.6367.60 (Official Build) nightly (x86_64)
Revision	87978a973dbc82c83fc1f20ab9ec943862c388ed
OS	macOS Version 14.5 (Build 23F5064f)

[MadhaviSeelam]

Also couldn't reproduce in macOS

[stephendonner]

This is looking good again using the following builds:

Brave	1.66.107 Chromium: 125.0.6422.41 (Official Build) (x86_64)
Revision	188213f024297511fc5e37efe56eabde5992b300
OS	macOS Version 11.7.10 (Build 20G1427)

---

Brave	1.66.107 Chromium: 125.0.6422.41 (Official Build) (x86_64)
Revision	188213f024297511fc5e37efe56eabde5992b300
OS	macOS Version 14.5 (Build 23F79)

[fallaciousreasoning]

Okay, I don't trust this at all @stephendonner - I'm going to start another thread in DevOps

[chutneyio]

Blank page when select Customize -> Brave News:

Version 1.66.110 Chromium: 125.0.6422.60 (Official Build) (x86_64)

[fallaciousreasoning]

@petemill looks like it's happening in the wild 😨 - we should get that fix you were talking about ASAP

[petemill]

This is caused by #38435 but mainly #38437. Not sure if you want to keep this open for verification test plan or close as duplicate. I'll put the test plan on 38435

[kjozwiak]

Closing as the above should be fixed by brave/brave-core#23753.

[kjozwiak]

@brave/qa-team can also use the STR/Cases that were mentioned/outlined via #38437 (comment) and can use brave/brave-core#23753 (comment) as a template. Please make sure that we're using the Universal installer for the above 👍

The above requires 1.66.113 or higher for 1.66.x verification 👍

[LaurenWags]

Verified with

Brave | 1.66.113 Chromium: 125.0.6422.76 (Official Build) (x86_64)
-- | --
Revision | b1864a9a0152d4f1631121c6b13a7426f50cf336
OS | macOS Version 13.6.7 (Build 22G720)

Reproduced both cases from #38437 (comment) using 1.66.105 Chromium: 125.0.6422.41:

Case 1:

1. Open the universal .app on an intel mac
2. Visit NTP
3. Click Customize
4. Switch to "Brave News"
5. NTP goes blank due to JS error

Case 2:

1. Open the universal .app on an intel mac
2. In chrome://flags enable "Brave Search on NTP"
3. Restart browser
4. Visit NTP
5. NTP goes blank due to JS error

Case 1	Case 2

Using same cases as above and 1.66.113 Chromium: 125.0.6422.76, confirmed the NTP no longer displays blank with JS error in these cases.
Also confirmed selecting each option on the "Customize Dashboard" left navigation menu did not result in the NTP going blank with JS error.

Case 1	Case 2

[stephendonner]

Verification PASSED using

Brave | 1.66.113 Chromium: 125.0.6422.76 (Official Build) (x86_64)
-- | --
Revision | b1864a9a0152d4f1631121c6b13a7426f50cf336
OS | macOS Version 14.5 (Build 23F79)

Followed my original steps to reproduce, for both new and existing profiles

Existing profile

New profile

Confirmed I could no longer reproduce the JS error; new-tab pages opened the Customize dashboard without issue