1496267 - Duplicate entries in Add/Remove Programs after Firefox upgrade

Status: REOPENED

(Firefox :: Installer, defect, P3)

Description

[Dan Callahan [:callahad]]

Attachment: screenshot.png

A user on Reddit reports that upgrading from 62.0.2 to 62.0.3 left duplicate entries in the Windows Apps and Features (née Add/Remove Programs) dialog.

The user previously had the same thing occur between 59.0.3 and 60.0 (see attached screenshot), as mentioned at https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/8ifibw/

Looks like this is a recurrent bug (Bug 247884, Bug 389244, Bug 789743, etc.), but not seeing an obvious recent candidate to dupe / reopen. Maybe Bug 1201734?

Comment 1

[Molly Howell (she/her) (mostly inactive)]

I notice the locale changed to en-US as well. That means this might have been caused by the Kaspersky issue that bug 1461332 and bug 1436662 comment 55 are about, or something else related to bug 1436662.

Unfortunately the Reddit comments say the user has deleted the registry key that I would have asked for in order to diagnose this, so I think I have to close this bug.

Comment 2

[Dan Callahan [:callahad]]

The Reddit thread was a previous incident, the user reached out to me directly after having it recur for 62.0.2/62.0.3, both en-GB this time.

I believe the user's registry is still intact from the most recent dupe. Which keys would you like to see?

Comment 3

[Dan Callahan [:callahad]]

Attachment: screenshot2.png

Updated screenshot from user, showing two 62.0.x en-GB entries in Windows

The outdated registry entry is as follows:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Mozilla Firefox 62.0.2 (x64 en-GB)]
"Comments"="Mozilla Firefox 62.0.2 (x64 en-GB)"
"DisplayIcon"="C:\\Programs\\Firefox\\firefox.exe,0"
"DisplayName"="Mozilla Firefox 62.0.2 (x64 en-GB)"
"DisplayVersion"="62.0.2"
"HelpLink"="https://support.mozilla.org"
"InstallLocation"="C:\\Programs\\Firefox"
"Publisher"="Mozilla"
"UninstallString"="\"C:\\Programs\\Firefox\\uninstall\\helper.exe\""
"URLUpdateInfo"="https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/62.0.2/releasenotes"
"URLInfoAbout"="https://www.mozilla.org"
"NoModify"=dword:00000001
"NoRepair"=dword:00000001
"EstimatedSize"=dword:00024fff

Comment 4

[Molly Howell (she/her) (mostly inactive)]

Oh, okay, I hadn't realized that; thanks. Can you get the registry key for the updated version as well? This one's perfectly normal and I don't see anything that indicates what could have happened here.

Comment 5

[Dan Callahan [:callahad]]

Sorry for the slow responses (hooray timezones!)

The user sent me a screenshot of their HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\...\Uninstall\ tree, and the only entry present is for 62.0.2. There aren't any other Mozilla-related entries.

Any idea where we should be looking? In the meantime, I'll ask them to check the equivalent path under HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

Comment 6

[Molly Howell (she/her) (mostly inactive)]

Yeah, the same path but in HKEY_CURRENT_USER instead of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE would be the other place to look. The duplicate key being over there would point to a permissions issue, which is the most likely way I can imagine this kind of thing happening.

Comment 7

[Dan Callahan [:callahad]]

Yep, the entry under HKCU is identical to the one under HKLM, aside from 62.0.2 vs 62.0.3 and a slightly different EstimatedSize.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Mozilla Firefox 62.0.3 (x64 en-GB)]
"Comments"="Mozilla Firefox 62.0.3 (x64 en-GB)"
"DisplayIcon"="C:\\Programs\\Firefox\\firefox.exe,0"
"DisplayName"="Mozilla Firefox 62.0.3 (x64 en-GB)"
"DisplayVersion"="62.0.3"
"HelpLink"="https://support.mozilla.org"
"InstallLocation"="C:\\Programs\\Firefox"
"Publisher"="Mozilla"
"UninstallString"="\"C:\\Programs\\Firefox\\uninstall\\helper.exe\""
"URLUpdateInfo"="https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/62.0.3/releasenotes"
"URLInfoAbout"="https://www.mozilla.org"
"NoModify"=dword:00000001
"NoRepair"=dword:00000001
"EstimatedSize"=dword:0002518b

Comment 8

[Molly Howell (she/her) (mostly inactive)]

Okay, thanks. It should be fine to delete the older registry key now.

The Maintenance Service should have kept this from happening; do you know if they have it installed and enabled?

I have another idea for how to prevent this even when the maintenance service isn't running though. We have logic here [0] that attempts to avoid creating duplicate uninstall entries in HKEY_CURRENT_USER like this, but it doesn't work in this case because the string that it uses to identify that the uninstall key already exists in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is one that includes the version number. We should probably change that to check UninstallString instead. That means the version number that's displayed will be out of date, but that's a better outcome than having two entries.

[0] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/80ac71c1c54af788b32e851192dfd2de2ec18e18/browser/installer/windows/nsis/shared.nsh#709

Comment 9

[Dan Callahan [:callahad]]

User reports that they don't have the maintenance service installed.

Comment 10

[Molly Howell (she/her) (mostly inactive)]

Ah, that explains how this could happen, then. The updater really expects to be run with at least the same level of permissions as the installer was, and the level of permissions needs to be consistent for each update. The maintenance service ensures those things; otherwise it's up to the user and we assume they know what they're doing.

Not having the service installed is a supported configuration though, so that doesn't mean WONTFIX'ing this bug.