Recommended by Pocket UK missing setting in Options and no UK content
I saw in the FF 77.0 release notes that 'Recommended by Pocket' was now available in the UK and went to try it out. Two problems, one of which I've found a workaround for and one I haven't.
1 The Recommended by Pocket tickbox that's supposed to be in about:preferences#home isn't there in my browser (FF 77.01 Windows 10 laptop). That whole entry as described in the help pages simply doesn't exist. I've managed to get the Recommended by Pocket section to appear on my NTP by manually turning it on in about:config, but obviously I'm not supposed to have to do that. So why is it missing in my Options page?
2 Where's the UK stuff in the results? The FF 77.0 release notes announcing recommended by pocket now available for users in the UK links to a Mozilla blog entry that says:
'What does this mean for Firefox users in the UK? Open a new tab every day and see a curated selection of recommended stories from Pocket. People will see thought-provoking essays, hidden gems, and fascinating deep-dives from UK-based publishers both large and small — and other trusted global sources from across the web.'
Well I'm not seeing any articles from UK-based publishers of any size, just US ones. And yes my FF language is set to English (United Kingdom), and browser.search.countryCode and browser.search.region in about:config both show GB. So where's the UK content?
Chosen solution
That pref was set to false. Setting it to true, but reverting the two changes I said I made above so that browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-layout-config was just US,CA and browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-stories-config was US,DE,CA again, I got a Recommended by Pocket on the NTP with just 3 stories, all from US sources, and no Recommended by pocket in options>Home.
Adding GB back on to the end of browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-layout-config's US,CA I got Recommended by Pocket on the NTP with 21 stories, this time 9 UK and 12 US sources (better), but still no Recommended by Pocket in Options>Home.
Aladdin GB back onto the end of browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-stories-config's US,DE,CA gave me the same Recommended by Pocket on the NTP with the same 21 stories, but also made the Recommended by Pocket option re-appear in Options>Home.
Anyway, I have now got Recommended by Pocket working, and the option so I can turn it on or off easily from Options rather than having to go into about:config and poke likely settings in there. So my problems as such are solved for me, though not other UK users. Clearly something was messed up in the rollout of Recommended by Pocket to UK users for me to have to go into about:config and find settings in there to change manually to get the feature working.
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I added GB onto the US,CA value of browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-layout-config and also onto the US,DE,CA value of browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-stories-config in about:config. I now have the Recommended by Pocket entry in Options>Home and a few UK articles. So It appears the problem is that Mozilla didn't change the config settings during the FF 77 update to allow UK users to access recommended by Pocket despite it being declared as a main feature of the update.
And, out of the 21 articles presented, THREE are from British sources and one Irish. The rest American. Not very impressive given what they said in that blog entry.
Did you check this pref on the about:config page ?
- browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.section.topstories = true
Chosen Solution
That pref was set to false. Setting it to true, but reverting the two changes I said I made above so that browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-layout-config was just US,CA and browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-stories-config was US,DE,CA again, I got a Recommended by Pocket on the NTP with just 3 stories, all from US sources, and no Recommended by pocket in options>Home.
Adding GB back on to the end of browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-layout-config's US,CA I got Recommended by Pocket on the NTP with 21 stories, this time 9 UK and 12 US sources (better), but still no Recommended by Pocket in Options>Home.
Aladdin GB back onto the end of browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.region-stories-config's US,DE,CA gave me the same Recommended by Pocket on the NTP with the same 21 stories, but also made the Recommended by Pocket option re-appear in Options>Home.
Anyway, I have now got Recommended by Pocket working, and the option so I can turn it on or off easily from Options rather than having to go into about:config and poke likely settings in there. So my problems as such are solved for me, though not other UK users. Clearly something was messed up in the rollout of Recommended by Pocket to UK users for me to have to go into about:config and find settings in there to change manually to get the feature working.