“new-profile” ping

This opt-out ping is sent from Firefox Desktop 30 minutes after the browser is started, on the first session of a newly created profile. If the first session of a newly-created profile was shorter than 30 minutes, it gets sent using the Ping Sender at shutdown.

Note

We don’t sent the ping immediately after Telemetry completes initialization to give the user enough time to tweak their data collection preferences.

Structure:

{
  type: "new-profile",
  ... common ping data
  clientId: <UUID>,
  profileGroupId: <UUID>,
  environment: { ... },
  payload: {
    reason: "startup", // or "shutdown"
    processes: { ... }
  }
}

payload.reason

If this field contains startup, then the ping was generated at the scheduled time after startup. If it contains shutdown, then the browser was closed before the time the ping was scheduled. In the latter case, the ping is generated during shutdown and sent using the Ping Sender.

processes

This section contains per-process data.

Structure:

"processes" : {
  "parent": {
    "scalars": {...}
  }
}

scalars

This section contains the Scalars that are valid for the new-profile ping, that is the record_into_store list contains new-profile. Scalars are only submitted if data was added to them. The recorded scalars are described in the Scalars.yaml file.

Duplicate pings

We expect a low fraction of duplicates of this ping, mostly due to crashes happening right after sending the ping and before the telemetry state gets flushed to the disk. This should be fairly low in practice and manageable during the analysis phase.

Expected behaviours

The following is a list of conditions and expected behaviours for the new-profile ping:

  • The ping is generated at the browser shutdown on a new profile, after the privacy policy is displayed:

    • for an user initiated browser shutdown, new-profile is sent immediately using the Ping Sender;

    • for a browser shutdown triggered by OS shutdown, new-profile is saved to disk and sent next time the browser restarts.

  • The ping is generated before the privacy policy is displayed: new-profile is saved to disk and sent next time the browser restarts.

  • The ping is set to be generated and Telemetry is disabled: new-profile is never sent, even if Telemetry is turned back on later.

  • Firefox crashes before the ping can be generated: new-profile will be scheduled to be generated and sent again on the next restart.

  • User performs a profile refresh:

    • the ping was already sent: new-profile will not be sent again.

    • the ping was not sent: new-profile will be generated and sent.

    • the refresh happens immediately after the profile creation, before the policy is shown: new-profile will not be sent again.

  • Firefox is run with an old profile that already sent Telemetry data: new-profile will not be generated nor sent.