1567158 - Can't locate Firefox Nightly if installed using .pkg file and having multiple firefox builds installed

Status: NEW

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect)

Description

[Bogdan Maris, Desktop Test Engineering]

Attachment: pkg applications.png

Affected versions

• Nightly 69 and 70

Affected platforms

• macOS 10.13

Steps to reproduce

1. Have multiple firefox versions installed (see the screenshot attached)
2. Download any .pkg installer 69 or 70
3. Run the installer
4. Complete all the default installation steps

Expected result

• Firefox Nightly.app is located in Applications (or somewhere visible)

Actual result

• Firefox Nightly.app is not in Applications and the installation did not fail so it was installed somewhere

Regression range

• This behavior was seen with the first public .pgk installer as well so I would not call this a regression.

Additional notes

• Image showing the issue after installing Nightly .pkg
• Is there a different path where it should be installed?

Comment 1

[Aki Sasaki (not active)]

Mike, are we worried about this scenario? Aiui, QA also saw that in the standard case, pkg installers overwrote the app in /Applications/ silently.

Comment 2

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Were you able to search the machine and find where it was installed?

I don't see how it could have ended up anywhere else...

Comment 3

[Aki Sasaki (not active)]

Is this only on 10.13?

Comment 4

[Bogdan Maris, Desktop Test Engineering]

(In reply to Aki Sasaki [:aki] (he/him) (UTC-7) from comment #3)

Is this only on 10.13?

Nope, this happens in 10.14 as well.

(In reply to Mike Kaply [:mkaply] from comment #2)

Were you able to search the machine and find where it was installed?

I don't see how it could have ended up anywhere else...

Honestly I don't know where the firefox is installing, I've searched it on my machine but I can't see it anywhere. Installed a 69.0b7.pkg so I searched for "firefox" but found nothing.
I played a bit more with this and here are some findings:

• after deleting some old firefoxes I kept installing 69.0b7.pkg and starting to see that it started replacing some builds (beta or RC)
• I deleted all the firefoxes that it replaced while installing 69.0b7, ended up without any RC or beta build in Applications. I was left with Nightly and ESR builds. I downloaded an old RC build and stacked it in the folder where ESR builds were and installed 69.0b7.pkg again, but this time it did not replace the RC that was there, it just installed somewhere.
• I also found out that some builds were installed in my iClould Drive for some reason... (beta pkg only), I deleted all of them and it did not end up there again after trying a few more times.

Is there a logic for what builds the pkg build will replace? Or where it should install (I guess Applications).

Comment 5

[Aki Sasaki (not active)]

Did you empty your trash after deleting? It may be installing into the trash if that’s where your app is?

Comment 6

[Bogdan Maris, Desktop Test Engineering]

(In reply to Aki Sasaki [:aki] (he/him) (UTC-7) from comment #5)

Did you empty your trash after deleting? It may be installing into the trash if that’s where your app is?

I thought about that as well, but trash was empty.

Comment 7

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

From the Mac Admins Slack:

elios 10:58 AM
This is bundle relocation at work
/var/log/install.log will almost certainly show it updated a copy of the bundle found somewhere else
The munkipkg tool, which is essentially a wrapper around pkgbuild/productbuild can turn off bundle relocation. You might want to do that; or you might not. Turning off bundle relocation makes sense for an admin; maybe it doesn't for a "regular" user who might have installed Firefox somewhere other than directly under /Applications

@Mike Kaply perhaps this session from PSU MacAdmins may be of some help: slides - http://macadmins.psu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/24696/2016/07/psumac2016-58-PSUMacAdmins2016-Intro-to-Packaging.pdf and the recorded session itself: https://youtube.com//watch?v=oKxjxi9Eny8 (edited)