1184475 - Firefox could not install the search plugin from ... because an engine with the same name already exists.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Search, defect, P4)

Description

[Pander]

Attachment: firefox-search-tool-en.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0
Build ID: 20150629114049

Steps to reproduce:

Install search tool add-on (search engine):
1) Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/wikipedia-nl/
2) Choose Continue to Download
3) Choose +Add to Firefox


Actual results:

Blocking Lightbox dialog with exclamation mark icon and text:

Firefix could not install the search plugin from "https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/328666/wikipedia-nl_20150712.xml?src=search" because an engine with the same name already exists.


Expected results:

For testing, debug or other purposes I would like to have gotten the a similar notification but with the choice:
- No noting
- Install over existing version

This dialog should not be an error, because it is not an error.

Justification is that I have been doing development on a search tool that I maintain and get these errors, see first screenshot. In this case the content is different and is not an error as such. Other users that I ask to test or install my new version also get this error. See second screenshot. In this case it is also not an error. People think my search tool is broken or that they cannot install/upgrade (even though they might be already at the latest version, but that is not the user experience they have). So offer ignore and forcefully install over exitingversion please.

Comment 1

[Pander]

Attachment: firefox-search-tool-nl.png

Comment 2

[Pander]

If this is properly fixed, this bug for Thunderbird https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939145 should be resolved too.

Comment 3

[Pander]

There is a third justification. User with some skills might remove the XML file form their profile directory. However, that results in the same situation because the XML file is still named in search.json and search-metadata.json. Because reinstallation or overriding (possible non-existing file) is not possible, the user is then stuck with an corrupt installation.

Comment 4

[Pander]

See also https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=987516 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1028880 except here also a solution is proposed.

Comment 5

[Jeroen Devlieghere]

Experiencing the problem described here. Due to this, I can no longer install the (much used) wikipedia search add-on. So I am interested in a solution. 
Even after removing the wikipedia search add-on, and the associated xml-file, the error described above keeps popping up.

Comment 6

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to Pander from comment #3)
> There is a third justification. User with some skills might remove the XML
> file form their profile directory. However, that results in the same
> situation because the XML file is still named in search.json and
> search-metadata.json. Because reinstallation or overriding (possible
> non-existing file) is not possible, the user is then stuck with an corrupt
> installation.

If an xml file is removed from the profile, Firefox should update the cache at the next restart, so if you restart Firefox before attempting to install, the install should work.

Comment 7

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

There are 3 different cases discussed here:

- upgrading an add-on installed by the user (I think this is the request in comment 0). This seems a legitimate case, and upgrading (like we do for add-ons) would be more useful than showing an error message.

- attempting to re-install an engine with the same name as a default engine that has been hidden (default engines can never be completely removed, they are only hidden when the user clicks "remove" in the preference UI). This should not install the new engine, but I think a good case could be made that we should automatically un-hide the default engine. This is the request in comment 5. I thought we already had a bug on file for this case, but I can't find it right now.

- replacing a visible default engine. This is the case in bug 1028880, and it's not something we should do, as it would be abused by search hijackers. We actually made this even harder with bug 1109354.

I think we should keep this bug for the first case (upgrading a user-installed add-on).

Comment 8

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

The 'good first bug' whiteboard annotation is to indicate that a bug would be a good choice for a contributor getting started. If you are not willing to mentor this bug, please avoid setting this; thanks.

Comment 9

[Pander]

Hi all, any updates on this? Thanks.

Comment 10

[Geoffrey D.]

Attachment: Firefox 53

Still affected as of FF 53.0

Comment 11

[Luke Usherwood]

I access a private server whose URL was switched from http -> https. I thought to update the search URL I should remove it and add it back with HTTPS. I was thereafter blocked with the message:

Firefox could not download the search plugin from: https:/trac.example.com/search/opensearch

So I can no longer use this handy feature. Before I tried to fix the URL, it was working fine (as the server at least redirects from HTTP -> HTTPS, so it was just some extra delay)

Is this the same issue? Or should I log a separate ticket?

Comment 12

[noah.gamble]

Mozilla, please fix this... it's a real shame that I can't seem to get DuckDuckGo back.

Also, there should be an integrated search-adder that works without this bug, like there is on Firefox for Android.

Comment 13

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to noah.gamble from comment #12)

Mozilla, please fix this... it's a real shame that I can't seem to get DuckDuckGo back.

You should be able to get it back via "Restore Default Search Engines" in preferences: See this link for a bit more information: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-or-remove-search-engine-firefox#w_remove-search-engines

If that doesn't work, please file a new bug including details of what you've done and preferably a screen shot of that search preferences page.

Comment 14

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

AMO (addons.mozilla.org) no longer supplies these types of search engines, and has better integration for Add-ons generally.

Therefore I think this is wontfix.