253220 - Proper Software Update

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect, P2)

Description

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Implement proper software update that replaces the running instance of Firefox
with a newer version, can add add on components, apply patches, etc.

Comment 1

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: fix leaks in update service

Comment 2

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: first part

Comment 3

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: about 50% done

Comment 4

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: patch

Handle Install button disabling, properly initiate the download operation.

Comment 5

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: sample update file

The patch in this bug isn't done yet, but here's a sample update file to see
what I'm doing...

Comment 6

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: more...

make in-place app update work

Comment 7

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: final patch

Comment 8

[Frederic Bezies]

Sorry to spam this bug, but I have this big bad xul error, when clicking on
"Check Now Button" in preferences :

XML Parsing Error: undefined Entity
Location: chrome://mozapps/content/update/update.xul
Line 122, Column 57:

<radio type="update-type" id="patches"
accesskey="&found.updatetype.patches.accesskey;" collapsed="true">
-----------^

Hope it helps ;)

Note : I have this error with an homemade build with a blank new tarball grabbed
on CVS at 00:30 mozilla.org time.

Comment 9

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

same in 02 PDT Sweetlou build.
The error started at the first checkin 

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040805
Firefox/0.9.1+

Comment 10

[Doug Wright]

I assume the new build update/install will only be for milestone builds (don't
want to confuse/annoy people with nightlies...)

Given that - how do we test this before 1.0PR?

Also (trivial) - 'Critical Updates' sounds too much like Windows Update to me.
What about using the phrase 'Security Updates' instead? Doesn't lessen the
impact of the wording and is different from MS?

Comment 11

[Scott MacGregor]

FYI, I've filed Bug #254462 for me to make matching changes for Thunderbird

Comment 12

[Scott MacGregor]

Ben, did you forget to check in the dtd changes when you landed this? I'm
getting DTD errors in the update dialog this morning.

Comment 13

[Pavel Penaz]

This new software update does not work for me when using a proxy, the update
keeps searching for updates forever. When I revert back to direct connection,
the update proceeds just fine. Can anyone confirm this? I'm running WinXP Pro.

Comment 14

[Stebs]

(In reply to comment #13)
> This new software update does not work for me when using a proxy, the update
> keeps searching for updates forever. When I revert back to direct connection,
> the update proceeds just fine. Can anyone confirm this? I'm running WinXP Pro.
Can confirm this, thought until now that update was completely broken (searches
forever without another message/error) since I am forced to use a proxy...
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040803
Firefox/0.9.1+ (MOOX-AV)
BTW, when proxy was down once, FF did hang. It was totally unresponsive, I had
to edit prefs.js (to no proxy) to be able to use it again (in offline-mode).
Dont know what to do with this bug, is it Mozilla-related (connectivity)? 

Comment 15

[Travis Chase]

I noticed in the corner of my 20040805 nightly build it 1 Critical Update
avalible in the corner, and when you click on it, it says it was not able to
find avalible updates,

Comment 16

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: Make app update actually work...

Comment 17

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

All that remains to be done now is to get XPIs posted on the website... we won't
be able to get the seamless upgrade working for Mac right away since we don't
produce XPIs for MacOS X yet. 

Comment 18

[Jacob W. Klein]

Using the latest Windows Nightly:
2004-08-09-08-0.9 FirefoxSetup.exe

and with this setup:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040809
Firefox/0.9.1+

I doubleclicked the update-area in the bottom right of Firefox, it searched for
a while for updates, reported NONE (but had problems with AddBookMarkHere)....
BUT...  Now it shows an orange circle with a '1', and a tooltip says "Critical
Update(s) Available"

Upon doubleclicking it again, it still finds nothing, but always shows 1 update
available.

I assume this is the correct bug to post this error message in?

Comment 19

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

(In reply to comment #18)
> I doubleclicked the update-area in the bottom right of Firefox, it searched
> for a while for updates, reported NONE (but had problems with
> AddBookMarkHere)....
> BUT...  Now it shows an orange circle with a '1', and a tooltip says "Critical
> Update(s) Available"
> 
> Upon doubleclicking it again, it still finds nothing, but always shows 1
> update available.

See <http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=710699#710699>.  It's
apparently fixed, but you can't really tell it right now.  That's what you get
with nightlies, I guess.

As for the proper location to post the error message, try the mozillaZine forums
(specifically the Firefox Builds forum in a thread about the latest nightly
builds, or in the Firefox Bugs forum).  Thanks!

http://forums.mozillazine.org/

Comment 20

[Jacob W. Klein]

My point is that this is a problem.  If I clear the settings per your
"solution", the problem just presents itself again whenever it searches for
updates.  I can only assume there is a problem with the update code or update
server, because it is consistently finding false positives.



> See <http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=710699#710699>.  It's
> apparently fixed, but you can't really tell it right now.  That's what you get
> with nightlies, I guess.
> 

Comment 21

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

Attachment: more tweaks

Comment 22

[Oscar Manuel Gómez Senovilla]

Sorry if this is somewhere and I didn't see it: Can this handle non en-US
packages? Is or will there be a way for localizators in the langpack to point to
the localized update site?

Comment 23

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

a) the langpack can point at a different update URL, although we'd like to get
all update RDF files for official localizations on update.mozilla.org for
simplicity... the update RDF format supports multiple languages... and an update
to a newer version is not offered until it is available in the appropriate
language... It makes this determination by checking to see what language is
selected for the "global" package and comparing it against the list of languages
provided by the update RDF file. If there's a match, the update is shown in the
UI, if not, it isn't... the update system will keep checking until the language
IS available. 

There's one key change that has been made to the langenus.xpi file for installer
builds... the installer script calls XPInstall's |initInstall| method with the
version registry name "en-US" rather than "mozilla/locale/en-US" or whatever it
was using before. This is *IMPORTANT*... initInstall in a langpack must be
called with the short name of the locale since that's what we'll be using to
identify the locales in the update RDF files and we need a way to match. So, for
example, initInstall lines might now look something like this:

err = initInstall("English (US) Language Pack", "en-US", "0.10");

Comment 24

[Pavel Penaz]

When I try to update to Firefox PR the update finishes with an error, that is
expected. But after the failed update there should still be an icon in the
status bar that one critical update is available. But this icon disappears right
after the failed update.

Expected behaviour would be that there remains the red update icon.

Comment 25

[Todd A. Fisher]

Attachment: a server side packager and client side updater

Comment 26

[Todd A. Fisher]

Hi,  I've put together an update system that I hope can be used for firefox. It
is general and can be used in for a verity of different projects.  It is based
on the bsd bsdiff/bspatch.  But I have plans on support different filetypes such
as database migration tools.  Currently, the strength of this update system is
in the fact that it relies entirely on a webserver to provide the updates.  The
backend consists of a sql database (currently mysql), a php script and apache
web server.  New updates can be created using the server side pkg tool.  And on
the client side either from the command line (upkg) or from the graphical tool
(gupkg) can be used to apply the update for the client.  I hope to have my
source  in a public repository shortly.  For now attached is my latest work.

Comment 27

[Oscar Manuel Gómez Senovilla]

(In reply to comment #23)

Could please document all these "by_the_moment_hidden_if_not_asked" issues so
localizators should know in the proper localization pages?

Comment 28

[Doug Wright]

I manually checked for updates - and during the checking the status bar
displayed 1, *then 2*, and then 1 when it had finished.

I then cancelled out of the install box.

Clicking the red icon later to try and install the 'update', it went and checked
first again instead of just prompting me with the results of the check 5 minutes
ago.

And I know I said before about the wording of 'critical updates', but 1.0PR is
not a critical update IMHO - only recommended/important.

Comment 29

[Jesse Ruderman]

> 1.0PR is not a critical update IMHO - only recommended/important

It will contain a fix for at least one security hole, and we're unlikely to
release a 0.9.4 at the same time, so it is a critical update.

Comment 30

[Doug Wright]

OK fair enough - but you get my general point... ;-)

Comment 31

[Doug Wright]

Also - screen says 'Choose what you want to install', but the selection is
comprised of a radio button - I cannot unselect 1.0PR...

Comment 32

[Thorsten Kaiser]

I can confirm #14 and #15.
In my company I only have internet connection through a proxy. The update
feature gives all sorts of results, but does not seem to work properly.
- It does not return for quite a long time, sometimes even does not seem to
return at all (had to kill FF after a few minutes of waiting)
- There are nearly always problems with updates for some extensions, the
selection of which seems to differ arbitrarily (may be a problem of the
extension server though) between one check and the next
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040803 Firefox/0.9.3 

Comment 33

[chris hofmann]

how much of this has landed, and how much remains?  is it just backend server
updates and then testing the pieces that are already landed in the client?

Comment 34

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

All this code is checked in, branch and trunk I believe.