1292562 - [Out Of Date Notification] Cannot trigger the system add-on checks on Windows Xp

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Adrian Florinescu [:aflorinescu]]

Attachment: xp snippet log.txt

[Description]:
On WindowsXP the check for system add-ons is not triggered by the two known ways at this moment. For Windows XP, the system add-on check and install is not successful. 

[Affected platforms]:
Windows

[Steps for triggering system addon - scenario 1] 
1. Install FF target version
2. Upgrade to latest FF(48), uninstall 48, reinstall target firefox (44.*) using the same profile.
2. Outofdate notifications system add-on required configurations:
2.1 about:config set extensions.systemAddon.update.url to value 	"https://aus5.mozilla.org/update/3/SystemAddons/%VERSION%/%BUILD_ID%/%BUILD_TARGET%/%LOCALE%/release-sysaddon/%OS_VERSION%/%DISTRIBUTION%/%DISTRIBUTION_VERSION%/update.xml"
2.2 about:config set extensions.logging.enabled	to value "True"
2.3 about:config Add string app.update.url.override with value "www.softvision.ro" 
3. Set update preferences ->  about:preferences#advanced and set Firefox updates to "Automatically install updates (recommended: improved security)"
4. Open Tools/Web console and click on the gear icon to get to settings, then enable the following two options: "Enable browser chrome and add-on debugging toolboxes" and "Enable remote debugging".
5. Force system addons check : Open Tool/WebDeveloper/Browser Console and run the snippet:   " Components.utils.import("resource://gre/modules/AddonManager.jsm"); AddonManagerPrivate.backgroundUpdateCheck(); "


[Steps for triggering system addon - scenario 2]:
1. Install FF target version
2. Upgrade to latest FF(48), uninstall 48, reinstall target firefox (44.*) using the same profile.
2. Outofdate notifications system add-on required configurations:
2.1 about:config set extensions.systemAddon.update.url to value 	"https://aus5.mozilla.org/update/3/SystemAddons/%VERSION%/%BUILD_ID%/%BUILD_TARGET%/%LOCALE%/release-sysaddon/%OS_VERSION%/%DISTRIBUTION%/%DISTRIBUTION_VERSION%/update.xml"
2.2 about:config set extensions.logging.enabled	to value "True"
2.3 about:config Add string app.update.url.override with value "www.softvision.ro" 
3. Set update preferences ->  about:preferences#advanced and set Firefox updates to "Automatically install updates (recommended: improved security)"
4. Install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/timer-fire/ and then Tools/Timer fire and run the snippet.

[Actual Result]:
both scenario 1 and 2 do not trigger the system addon check. See the attached log for the snippet run on Windows XP.

Comment 1

[Adrian Florinescu [:aflorinescu]]

Apologies for the spam, for the scenario 2 in step 4, I did a mistake and that scenario handles the system add-on without the use of the snippet and only using the Timer fire add-on.

Comment 2

[Stephen A Pohl [:spohl]]

I just ran an analysis against the most recent longitudinal dataset (longitudinal_v20160725) to see the distribution across Windows versions of our users on FF44.*

Windows 95:        <0.01%
Windows 2000:       0.03%
Windows XP:        10.64%
Windows XP Pro 64:  0.31%
Windows Vista:      2.20%
Windows 7:         52.78%
Windows 8:          3.15%
Windows 8.1:       12.23%
Windows 10:        18.66%

Considering that XP accounts for 10% of users it would be great to know why system addon checks on XP don't seem to execute. Robert, have you seen the error in the log output before? It looks to me like addons.update-checker is throwing an exception, which might prevent the subsequent system addon check to execute.

Comment 3

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

This is not the system add-on check failing, this is one of the regular add-on update checks failing.

Can you please paste the Extensions section from about:support ?

Comment 4

[Stephen A Pohl [:spohl]]

Right, my thinking was that this exception may interrupt the sequence of update checks. Since system addon update checks are executed after this regular addon update check, I was wondering if the exception thrown here may be the reason why we're not seeing any system addon update checks afterwards. Not sure if that's possible.

Comment 5

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

(In reply to Stephen A Pohl [:spohl] from comment #4)
> Right, my thinking was that this exception may interrupt the sequence of
> update checks. Since system addon update checks are executed after this
> regular addon update check, I was wondering if the exception thrown here may
> be the reason why we're not seeing any system addon update checks
> afterwards. Not sure if that's possible.

That is what I just started looking into, I think that's a bug to fix if so. My guess right now is there's an add-on installed which has a bad updateURL specified in install.rdf, I'd be surprised if that blocks all further update checks but about to test to see.

Comment 6

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

It looks like the problem here is the updateLink we're serving from AMO:
https://versioncheck-bg.addons.mozilla.org/update/VersionCheck.php?reqVersion=2&id={20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b}&version=0.0.0&maxAppVersion=9.*.*&status=userDisabled&appID={ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}&appVersion=44.0.2&appOS=WINNT&appABI=x86-msvc&locale=en-US&currentAppVersion=44.0.2&updateType=112&compatMode=normal

This had a bad updateLink:
/_privatefiles/9449/microsoft_net_framework_assistant-1.3.1-fx-windows.xpi?filehash=sha256%3A3dca35bee0acb9e767d683e2096fdb53f1b9a551a13983070dadd7db12e69cfb

This update has now been pulled.

Adrian, please disregard the request for about:support - can you re-test now and see if it works?

Comment 7

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

Just FYI the underlying cause here (system update check not running to completion due to a bad updateLink in an add-on's update) was fixed in 45 as part of bug 1214058.

We're looking at ways to make the update more robust in the face of unexpected errors, but this particular case shouldn't happen after 45.

Comment 8

[Adrian Florinescu [:aflorinescu]]

Thanks Robert, now the snippet runs, still with errors and the system add-on checks are triggered and the OutOfDate notification is found and installed. 
I'm guessing that we can close this with Resolved Fixed?

Comment 9

[Stephen A Pohl [:spohl]]

Great, thanks!

Comment 10

[Adrian Florinescu [:aflorinescu]]

Verified fixed as per comment8.