blank screen shown after completing onboarding, enabling news and clicking Customize button in the new-tab page

[MadhaviSeelam]

Description

Found this issue while testing #26378. Launched a new profile and completed on boarding including import. Gray screen shown after enabling news in the new tab page and clicked Customize button. Customized Dashboard screen shown for a quick second before showing gray screen. However, Gray screen not shown when skipped when skipped thru onboarding process

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install 1.47.149
2. launch Brave
3. click Set Brave as default browser
4. select Microsoft Edge
5. click Import
6. click Finish
7. click Turn on Brave News in the new tab page
8. click Customize

Actual result:

Gray screen shown when completed onboarding

2022-12-28_13h52_50.mp4

Gray screen not shown when skipped thru onboarding process

2022-12-28_15h01_52.mp4

Expected result:

Brave news dashboard screen should be shown

Reproduces how often:

Easily

Brave version (brave://version info)

Brave | 1.47.149 Chromium: 109.0.5414.46 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | 6e36b77363ef3febbe792af680fa1367993ddcf0-refs/branch-heads/5414@{#709}
OS | Windows 11 Version 22H2 (Build 22621.963)

Version/Channel Information:

• Can you reproduce this issue with the current release? N/A
• Can you reproduce this issue with the beta channel? Yes
• Can you reproduce this issue with the nightly channel?

Other Additional Information:

• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Shields?
• Does the issue resolve itself when disabling Brave Rewards?
• Is the issue reproducible on the latest version of Chrome?

Miscellaneous Information:

@rebron @nullhook

[rebron]

cc: @petemill @fallaciousreasoning When you get a chance can you take a look?

[petemill]

Let's add the error from devtools when the grey screen is shown, please

[MadhaviSeelam]

@petemill here it is:

[fallaciousreasoning]

Note: This doesn't repro in 1.48.69 or 1.46.144

[MadhaviSeelam]

@fallaciousreasoning - This is reproducible in 1.47.168 only. It appears this behavior displayed with certain profiles in some browsers.
Note: Not seeing this issue with 1.48.118 (Beta) Or 1.49.11 (Nightly)

I have following browsers installed:

• Microsoft Edge with 3 profiles
• Vivaldi with 3 profiles
• Chrome Canary with 2 profiles

blank screen shown with Edge - Profile 1 and Vivaldi - Person 2. However Brave News Dashboard was shown as expected with Chrome Canary.
Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi, Opera are shown blank screen with certain profiles except for Chrome Canary

Microsoft Edge Profile 2- Gray/blank screen

Welcome.to.Brave.-.Brave.2023-01-10.11-17-14.mp4

Microsoft Profile 1- Brave news dashboard shown

Profile.1.mp4

cc: @rebron

[stephendonner]

I saw this once using 1.48.119 Chromium: 109.0.5414.80 (Official Build) beta (x86_64), but am unsuccessful in later retries 😞

[mattmcalister]

was this resolved? I can't reproduce.

[stephendonner]

was this resolved? I can't reproduce.

I haven't seen this since, but I'll let @MadhaviSeelam chime in.

[MadhaviSeelam]

@mattmcalister It is still reproducible in 1.47.168. However, as I mentioned above, it was not reproducible in subsequent version, i.e. 1.48.x. Also, could not be reproduced below more recent versions. Closing the issue and can be reopened if needed.

1.52.117 Chromium: 114.0.5735.90
1.51.117 Chromium: 113.0.5672.92
1.50.121 Chromium: 112.0.5615.138