Closed Bug 1476859 Opened 8 years ago Closed 5 years ago

Updated add-ons re-enable if they are disabled in the add-on manager.

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Add-Ons: General, enhancement)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Add-Ons: General
Platform:
x86
Windows 10
Type:
enhancement
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: unicorn.consulting, Unassigned)

References

Details

I have notice that in the Thunderbird 60 beta that as updated add-on become available they are being downloaded and their disabled status revoked. This would be a good policy if the disabling was the result of marking the add-on incompatible with the new version, but I am seeing add-ons re-enabled that have been disabled for in some cases years. ?I do not think we should be over riding the choices of the user simply because there is a new version available. Today is was gContactSync. It has been disabled for more than a year. Today it just reappeared after a restart of Thunderbird. Previously I have noticed this with the Mail Summaries add-on.
Blocks: tb60found
Component: General → Add-Ons: General

I am finding this also and it was both annoying and more than just an inconvenience.

I had installed and then disabled the gcontactsync add-on: my crazy setup ( apple address books synched to google and from there synched to TB using gcontactsync - all while I was using TB on Macs) - turned out contacts were occasionally getting corrupted.

So I disabled gcontactsync and everything was ifne.

But the add-on kept coming back on TB updates, causing problems before I figured out what was going (It is now deleted).

So I think this should be more than an enhancement. I agree with Matt: if the user says "Disable this add-on" then it should stay disabled - not be magically turned on by the software without telling the user!

See Also: → 1182629

Is this still happening with TB78 and TB91 Beta?

Flags: needinfo?(unicorn.consulting)
Flags: needinfo?(ian.graham)

It has not happened to me since I reported this (I am on 78.12 & not running betas) ... but ( note that gcontactsync is currently not compatible with 78.12 (I have it disabled) so I would not see this bug (if it still exists) anyway.....

Flags: needinfo?(ian.graham)

(In reply to John Bieling (:TbSync) from comment #2)

Is this still happening with TB78 and TB91 Beta?

Why would it not be? While my installed and disabled addons has largely remained static after V68 due to the number of addon changes. As I also no longer use daily or beta on a daily basis (thanks to profile per install) my situation has changed. I no longer get such switching of addons between versions as the profile is locked to one version.

I am not aware of there being multiple states for a disabled addon however they are either on or off is my understanding. If we have since this bug was filed created some sort of reason for disabling so disabled by user is different to disabled by update than this bug probably needs to close. If we have not, perhaps the offering of alternatives on update could introduce such a thing and the bug could still be closed.

The bottom line is disabled is not in my opinion really a boolean when it comes to addons because there is user choice and software choice involved. Subsequent actions should reflect the reason the addon is disabled

Flags: needinfo?(unicorn.consulting)

I am not aware of there being multiple states for a disabled addon however they are either on or off is my understanding. If we have since this bug was filed created some sort of reason for disabling so disabled by user is different to disabled by update than this bug probably needs to close. If we have not, perhaps the offering of alternatives on update could introduce such a thing and the bug could still be closed.

We do have these extra states (userDisabled, appDisabled) internally, but we have them for very long, that is why I am puzzled. We did not change code here, but maybe m-c did. Since I have never been able to reproduce this, I wanted to ask if it is still valid at all and can be closed.

Can you give a STR which triggers this 100%?

What I did:

  • Create profile in TB60 and install gContactSync
  • Disable gContactsync
  • Start the profile in TB68 (gContactSync is shown incompatible)
  • Update add-ons (gContactSync is no longer incompatible, but still disabled)
  • Restart TB68 (gContactSync is still disabled)
  • Start the profile in TB78 (gContactSync is shown incompatible)

At no point was it enabled again.

I repeated the test with CardBook, which allowed me to go all the way from TB60 -> TB68 -> Tb78 -> Tb91 and see it being incompatible after update and then still being disabled after the add-on has been updated.

I will put my trust in you John. I have not seen this in two years really as my addon library of 10 years worth of experiments has basically been cleared out with web extensions. Close it sounds right to me..

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 5 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME

I agree that the John's test case seems to show the defect is no longer present. Always nice to close a bug report!

If you are going to observe this for any reason with TB91, it is important to write down how you got there, so we can try to reproduce it.

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