1497588 - macOS "updater" is missing the word Firefox in the binary name

Status: REOPENED

(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect, P3)

Description

[:Atoll]

On macOS, when I opened Nightly today, instead of a Firefox process in my command-tab menu, I got a process whose name was shown as simply "updater" with two gray arrows in a circle.

This process should be shown to the user as "Firefox Updater" or "FirefoxUpdater" or "firefox_updater" (or even the maximally-useful name "Updating Firefox" and its variants), so that if it gets stuck or hangs or breaks, users know that it's the _Firefox_ updater that's having issues and not just some random process called "updater" with a weird gray icon.

Comment 1

[:Atoll]

https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev/blob/43969de34f5d4b113133d090f024e5eed7a82af0/toolkit/mozapps/update/tests/browser/head.js#L13

It looks like this is where we decide that name:

    const FILE_UPDATER_BIN = "updater" + (IS_MACOSX ? ".app" : BIN_SUFFIX);

And the changes I propose are to the string constant "updater" here.

Comment 2

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

That's actually a test file and not where the name is determined. I think that OS X provides this info via other mechanisms which is why this hasn't come up previously in the past 13+ years of it being named updater so I'm cc'ing one of the OS X devs.

spohl, could I get your take on this request? What methods are there available on OS X for determining the application other than the path's leafname?

Comment 3

[Stephen A Pohl [:spohl]]

The updater app's name can be changed by replacing `updater.app` by something like `$(MOZ_APP_DISPLAYNAME)-updater.app` in the Makefile [1]. However, note that it is very likely that the app name will have to be changed in several other places and there is a risk of breaking updates altogether. From a quick test, the app does not seem to get the proper app icon applied for example. Any such change would have to be tested carefully, including updates by an `updater.app` to a build with `$(MOZ_APP_DISPLAYNAME)-updater.app`.

[1] https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/mozapps/update/updater/Makefile.in