Closed Bug 1577266 Opened 5 years ago Closed 5 years ago

You don't have access to write the installation directory

Categories

(Firefox :: Installer, defect)

68 Branch
x86_64
Windows 10
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

()

RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: rvernica, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Fedora; Linux x86_64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0

Steps to reproduce:

  1. On Windows 10, I downloaded latest Firefox Installer.exe as of 8/28/2019
  2. I was having some issues with Firefox so before running the installer I went and removed all the Mozilla directories from my hard drive. This included C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox and C:\Users\foo\AppData*\Mozilla
  3. Started the installer
  4. Installer reported the following error: "You don't have access to write the installation directory C:\Users\foo\AppData\Local\Mozilla"
  5. I restarted the installer
  6. Installer reported the following error: "You don't have access to write the installation directory C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" <- notice the different directory
  7. I repeated steps 5 and 6 a few times
  8. The installer run successfully and installed Firefox

I used the same users the whole time (to remove the directories in step 2, to run the installer, etc.) and did not escalate my privileges.

Actual results:

Installer reported some unexpected messages but eventually it worked.

This might have been due to hard disk errors on my side.

Component: Untriaged → Installer
OS: Unspecified → Windows 10
Hardware: Unspecified → x86_64

Hmm. Have you had some other indications of hard disk errors? If so, then I'm definitely leaning toward blaming this on those. That message talks about write access because that's a common problem, but really it shows up if there was any type of error with manipulating files at the chosen install directory, so it could also be caused by a hard disk problem, and a hard disk problem is a lot more likely than not having write access inside your own home directory. The same check determines what the default install directory will be (again, because we assume a failure means a lack of write permissions), so inconsistent hard disk operation would explain why you keep seeing it change.

Flags: needinfo?(rvernica)

This all started with Firefox showing a blank tab at startup and nothing worked. I tried Refresh, Safe Mode, and Uninstall/Install. Nothing worked. I guess it kept running into that bad disk sector. I ran into this issue during the installation process. I also noticed Outlook crashing at startup. I cleaned the disk and ran a disk scan. Now things are back to normal. I guess you can close this. Sorry for the trouble.

Flags: needinfo?(rvernica)

Okay, if surface scanning the disk helped then I'm satisfied with the explanation that the bad sectors were responsible. Thanks for reporting this though, I always prefer having bugs reported that turn out not to be bugs instead of not getting bugs reported that are real bugs.

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