Thanks for the detailed investigation and for referencing the earlier discussion.

Your reproduction steps across multiple scenarios and browsers make it easier to understand the behavior. One thing that stands out is that both the browser Back flow and the Cancel flow appear to preserve the originally selected permalink, even after a new line range has been selected.

That suggests the selected code reference may be treated as persistent client-side state instead of being refreshed from the current URL or selection whenever a new issue is opened.

I also agree with your point about user expectations. When a user selects a new range and chooses "Reference in new issue", they would generally …