bug: Back button disappears when navigating across tab subpages

Bug Report

Ionic version: [x] 4.x

Current behavior: If you try to navigate to a page/route that belongs to another tab and you have no default href for the ion-back-button, the back button does not appear. However, browser’s back button works fine.

Expected behavior: Back button should appear and navigate you to the page you were before.

Steps to reproduce: I used the ionic conference app with some changes to reproduce this.

• Go to Speakers tab
• Click The Ionic Package under the Burt Bear
• It should show the back button
• Go to Schedule tab
• Click any list item
• It gets you to the same page but without the back button

Related code:

My ionic conference app repo: https://github.com/anagstef/ionic-conference-app

The changes I made to it: https://github.com/anagstef/ionic-conference-app/commit/d88276c6cf746d378727c634e210a28ce461d7a1

Ionic info:

Ionic:

   ionic (Ionic CLI)             : 4.2.1 (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ionic)
   Ionic Framework               : @ionic/angular 4.4.0
   @angular-devkit/build-angular : 0.13.9
   @angular-devkit/schematics    : 7.3.9
   @angular/cli                  : 7.3.9
   @ionic/angular-toolkit        : 1.5.1

Cordova:

   cordova (Cordova CLI) : 8.0.0
   Cordova Platforms     : none
   Cordova Plugins       : no whitelisted plugins (0 plugins total)

System:

   ios-sim : 8.0.1
   NodeJS  : v10.15.3 (/Users/anagstef/.nvm/versions/node/v10.15.3/bin/node)
   npm     : 6.4.1
   OS      : macOS
   Xcode   : Xcode 10.2.1 Build version 10E1001

[liamdebeasi]

Hey everyone,

Apologies for the delay. I was able to reproduce this issue, and we will investigate further.

Thanks!

[liamdebeasi]

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to chime in here briefly. Most Ionic developers are using Ionic Angular, so Angular is still a huge priority for us. The focus recently has been on React mainly because it just entered 1.0, so we’ve been supporting it with higher priority fixes. Additionally, Stencil is handled by a separate team and does not impact development of Ionic Framework.

I will take a closer look at the code posted in https://github.com/ionic-team/ionic/issues/18311#issuecomment-499432089 and chat with the team regarding this. I will post an update regarding a more permanent solution when I have it. Thanks!