Browser opens to empty page on first launch

[bsclifton]

Did you search for similar issues before submitting this one?
Yes

Describe the issue you encountered:
If you launch Brave from source, the first time you run it there seems to be issues.

• about:newtab doesn't show the new tab content until after you've visited some sites
• the menus are missing options I believe

It might be caused by the sites list (in AppStore) being empty

Hopefully, this is not the case with a built version of the product (we need to verify)

Expected behavior:
Everything should work on first launch. I shouldn't need to visit sites.

• Platform (Win7, 8, 10? macOS? Linux distro?):
  all

• Brave Version:
  HEAD from master

• Steps to reproduce:

  1. git clone the repo
  2. if you have any brave-development files in place, move them out of the way
  3. npm run watch in one window
  4. npm start in another window
  5. Notice browser has issues

• Screenshot if needed:

• Any related issues:

[privatzee]

If it happens sporadically, it's possibly an Electron problem. Let's say I work on an Electron app today and everything is okay. Tomorrow morning when I start it up again it might be that some parts are missing. By restarting immediately without any changes made, everything is always there correctly. It shouldn't happen, but once in a great while it does happen. I've seen it and it's surprising.

But then if this issue happens every time, that's not the same.

[bsclifton]

It seems to happen every time when there is no session data. I think there are expected values which are missing and only get loaded properly after you visit 1 site or after the session is saved (which happens when you exit).

[bsclifton]

The about:newtabs root cause has been discovered; working on a fix...