1300523 - Manually updating Firefox to version 48 triggers warning that hotfix addon is incompatible

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Extension Compatibility, defect)

Description

[08xjcec48]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:48.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/48.0
Build ID: 20160804093608

Steps to reproduce:

Updated Firefox 47 to Firefox 48 through the Help menu -> About on a computer running Windows 10.


Actual results:

The update said that the automatically installed hotfix addon (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/firefox-hotfix/) was incompatible.


Expected results:

The hotfix addon should be ignored.

Comment 1

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

Report from the wild:

https://twitter.com/shinax/status/773580772733227008

Comment 2

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

(In reply to Robert Helmer [:rhelmer] from comment #1)
> Report from the wild:
> 
> https://twitter.com/shinax/status/773580772733227008

:rstrong you mention in bug 704987 c18:
"Application update no longer warns users about incompatible add-ons"

Are we not supposed to show that dialog anymore or were you referring to something else ^?

Thanks!

Comment 3

[Andy McKay]

That add-on is not compatible with Firefox 48 according to AMO. The update dialog was removed in 49 as per bug 1262880. I'm not sure what's in the Hotfix, but a simple fix might be to make it compatible with 48 on AMO.

Comment 4

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

See bug 1262880 for reference. The app update code that checked with the add-ons manager code was removed in Firefox 49.

Comment 5

[Andy McKay]

Also, lets get the hotfix into gofaster :)

Comment 6

[Andreas Wagner [:TheOne] [use NI]]

This behavior is not unexpected. The current version (20160826.01) is meant for Firefox versions below 48. It has a maxVersion of 47.* and has strict compatibility enabled which disables compatible-by-default and therefore incompatible with 48 and later.

Comment 7

[Andy McKay]

Its currently got the WebSense hotfix in it, I'm not sure if that's compatible with 48.

Comment 8

[Andy McKay]

(In reply to Andy McKay [:andym] from comment #7)
> Its currently got the WebSense hotfix in it, I'm not sure if that's
> compatible with 48.

And moments after I wrote that it occurred to me, its all about Firefox 48.

Comment 9

[08xjcec48]

Andreas, the hotfix addon is installed automatically by Firefox under the hood. How can you say that it's expected for the user to see a warning about an addon he/she doesn't even know about in first place? People assume it's some malware:

"That's silly and a waste of 15 minutes of my time researching if this is mal ware...its an official firefox add on"

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/firefox-hotfix/reviews/817267/


The point of my report is that Firefox should disable/uninstall it silently, just like it installed it.

Comment 10

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

(In reply to Andy McKay [:andym] from comment #5)
> Also, lets get the hotfix into gofaster :)

We decided to go for a hotfix this time (bug 1298404) since it's more work to target users on older releases (which we fixed in 49). The intention is to start using system add-ons for this sort of thing moving forward though.

Comment 11

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

(In reply to Hide my Email from comment #9)
> Andreas, the hotfix addon is installed automatically by Firefox under the
> hood. How can you say that it's expected for the user to see a warning about
> an addon he/she doesn't even know about in first place? People assume it's
> some malware:
> 
> "That's silly and a waste of 15 minutes of my time researching if this is
> mal ware...its an official firefox add on"
> 
> https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/firefox-hotfix/reviews/817267/
> 
> 
> The point of my report is that Firefox should disable/uninstall it silently,
> just like it installed it.

This was done in bug 1262880 but it didn't land until 49 (which is the upcoming release)

Comment 12

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

Hm, so why doesn't this dialog ignore the hotfix per bug 704987?

Comment 13

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

Oops, want to look into comment 12 first.

Comment 14

[Andreas Wagner [:TheOne] [use NI]]

(In reply to Hide my Email from comment #9)
> Andreas, the hotfix addon is installed automatically by Firefox under the
> hood. How can you say that it's expected for the user to see a warning about
> an addon he/she doesn't even know about in first place? People assume it's
> some malware:

Sorry, what I meant the hotfix add-on getting disabled is expected.

I see code in 48 that explicitly exlcudes the hotfix add-on when deciding whether or not to show that dialog.

What are the values for the following preferences in your Firefox instance (you can access them by entering about:config in your url bar):

app.update.auto
app.update.mode
app.update.incompatible.mode

Comment 15

[Andreas Wagner [:TheOne] [use NI]]

And also extensions.hotfix.id please.

Comment 17

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

Is this also happening for 49 updates (or about to happen once we are on the release channel?)
Or are you sure it is fixed for 49?   We could test it.

Comment 18

[08xjcec48]

(In reply to Andreas Wagner [:TheOne] from comment #14)
> (In reply to Hide my Email from comment #9)
> > Andreas, the hotfix addon is installed automatically by Firefox under the
> > hood. How can you say that it's expected for the user to see a warning about
> > an addon he/she doesn't even know about in first place? People assume it's
> > some malware:
> 
> Sorry, what I meant the hotfix add-on getting disabled is expected.
> 
> I see code in 48 that explicitly exlcudes the hotfix add-on when deciding
> whether or not to show that dialog.
> 
> What are the values for the following preferences in your Firefox instance
> (you can access them by entering about:config in your url bar):
> 
> app.update.auto
> app.update.mode
> app.update.incompatible.mode

(In reply to Andreas Wagner [:TheOne] from comment #15)
> And also extensions.hotfix.id please.

app.update.auto;true
app.update.mode;1
app.update.incompatible.mode;0
extensions.hotfix.id;[e-mail]

Comment 19

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

(In reply to Liz Henry (:lizzard) (needinfo? me) from comment #17)
> Is this also happening for 49 updates (or about to happen once we are on the
> release channel?)
> Or are you sure it is fixed for 49?   We could test it.

It would be great to test this - we expect it to be fixed by bug 1262880.

Thanks!

Comment 20

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

Can we test it on the beta channel? Do hotfixes only work on release?

Comment 21

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

If this is happening with default settings, we should probably republish the hotfix with a different maxVersion

Comment 22

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

(In reply to :Felipe Gomes (needinfo me!) from comment #21)
> If this is happening with default settings, we should probably republish the
> hotfix with a different maxVersion

I agree. The intention here was to use strict compatibility so it would be silently disabled in newer versions, but the "silent" part isn't working (at least in 48).

The add-on will uninstall itself if installed on the wrong version - has that been tested to make sure it works correctly on 47/48? If so then I don't think there's any harm in doing this and making this prompt stop bothering folks.

Comment 23

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Yeah that uninstall code has been tested and used by most previous hotfixes, so it should just work correctly when they get to 48

Comment 24

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

Maybe this is fixed by bug 1262880 but can someone please test ?

Comment 25

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

(In reply to Liz Henry (:lizzard) (needinfo? me) from comment #24)
> Maybe this is fixed by bug 1262880 but can someone please test ?

Since bug 1301425 made the maxVersion 49, I think all we need to do here is:

1) have a Firefox 48 install with the hotfix applied
2) application update to 49

The dialog from comment 0/comment 1 is not displayed.

Comment 26

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

If you used this current hotfix it won't work because it uninstalls itself when running on 48.

Bug 1262880 certainly fixed it, but it only landed in 49, and this dialog is pre-update, so it won't help during the 48-49 update.

So the thing to do is to pay attention and, if we need to deploy any new hotfixes to 48, it's a matter of not using maxVersion=48.*

For the currently published hotfix (WebSense) this was fixed server side on AMO by bug 1301425.

Comment 27

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

Felipe, do you mean that users would see this warning again once they update to 49?

Comment 28

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

Not anymore for this hotfix, as it has been fixed by bug 1301425. It's a problem that still exists and could be triggered again if another hotfix is released targeting 48. (but easy to avoid)

Comment 29

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

Are you sure? Many people are complaining on https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/firefox-hotfix/ ?

Comment 30

[:Felipe Gomes (needinfo for replies!)]

QA verified it in bug 1301425 comment 16. The issue here was about the hotfix being reported as incompatible with 48 during the update process. But the comments on AMO seem to be complaining about the existence of this add-on, which is true (it's visible in the Add-ons Manager for users of <= 47 until they upgrade to 48).

Two other comments are trying to tie it with problems on Gmail/Farmville which is certainly unrelated.

Comment 31

[Robert Helmer [:rhelmer]]

We've managed to work around this, and old-style hotfixes have now been deprecated in favor of system add-on updates so I don't think there's much to do here now.