1141145 - Installing a non-approved app by the owners is not possible

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Marketplace Graveyard :: Consumer Pages, enhancement, P4)

Description

[Anthony Ricaud (:rik)]

When trying to install a non-approved packaged app, we get this error message :"App install error: INVALID_URL"

I'd like to test the full flow of installation before launching and that is preventing this. It would be nice to be able to do this.

Comment 1

[Mathieu Pillard [:mat]]

Background info:

non-approved packaged apps have no current_version, so in zamboni, Webapp.get_manifest_url() returns "", which is what is exposed in the API. On the front-end side of things, fireplace happily tries to install this empty manifest url, and gecko returns an INVALID_URL error.

Note that even if we exposed a valid URL for the manifest URL for this non-approved apps, the view serving the manifest would fail if the app is non approved, even if the owner is logged on - the view serving the package download would work, but it'd serve a non-signed version.

Comment 2

[Allen Short [:ashort]]

Packaged apps can be installed directly on device, via tools like WebIDE. Is this insufficient for testing? As Mathieu points out, we don't have means for serving signed apps that haven't been approved.

Comment 3

[Anthony Ricaud (:rik)]

It could be sufficient but an app developer can't tell. Maybe distributing the app through the marketplace introduces new behaviour.

It also simplifies testing by non-developers. Instead of asking them to follow cumbersome steps [1], you can ask them to log into the marketplace, give them a team member role and install the app from a URL. Maybe they could even get the updates automatically during development.

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/Projects/BuddyUp/BuddyUp_on_your_phone

Comment 4

[David Bialer [:dbialer]]

We are not going to fix this in the near future due to other priorities.

Comment 5

[Anthony Ricaud (:rik)]

Can we at least give a better explanation than "App install error: INVALID_URL" ? The marketplace code knows that an app is not reviewed so it shouldn't show an install button if it's going to fail.

Comment 6

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

Where are you seeing the install button?  Can you add steps to reproduce this?  Are you manually loading the detail URL or navigating to it somehow?

Comment 7

[Anthony Ricaud (:rik)]

I think we loaded https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/buddyup/ manually at the time. (This app is now approved so I can't try again).