1688489 - Search engines is missing DuckDuckGo. Also not available after "Add from file". Error "Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Services.search.addEngine is not a function"

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: Search, defect)

Description

[Martin]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:86.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/86.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. Settings -> General -> Default Search Engine
2. Open drop-down

Workaround: Click "Add from file", choose OpenSearch.xml-compliant DuckDuckGo search add-on

Actual results:

On machine A, in order: listing contains Google, Amazon.com, Bing, Wikipedia (en)
On machine B, in order: listing contains Google, Amazon.com, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Wikipedia (en)

After workaround: nothing - no error, no warning, no added DuckDuckGo search.

Expected results:

After step 2: DuckDuckGo exists within the listing.

After workaround: DuckDuckGo is added to the listing.

Comment 1

[Martin]

N.B.: As requested in comment #11 of bug 1667588, I opened this bug.
Especially since that bug's follow-up comment suggests the error might stem from bug 1677808 and/or bug 1677812 as both machines's services.settings.server pref already points to https://thunderbird-settings.thunderbird.net/v1 correctly, yet the error (DuckDuckGo is missing from the listing) still persists.

Also raising severity to S2 according to its docs: (Serious) Major functionality/product severely impaired and a satisfactory workaround does not exist which is definitely the case as even the Add from file workaround fails to succeed:

Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Services.search.addEngine is not a function
This call happens in chrome://messenger/content/preferences/general.js, line 701:
let engine = await Services.search.addEngine(engineAdd, null, false);

Comment 3

[Martin]

This is not a duplicate!

The workaround I've mentioned that the linked bug describes, is not the main issue.
Instead, my discovered bug is a missing search provider, available on machine A but not on B - for whose scenario no bug exists currently.

Therefore, I insist that this bug shall be reopened & get fixed as soon as limited resources may allow - by obeying other priorities, of course.

Comment 4

[Martin]

Simplified bug title to avoid misinterpretation.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

With respect, by your definition in comment 1 virtually every bug would be S2, which isn't practical. DDG is a small part of search, and even search isn't a core critical function to TB - so this doesn't qualify as "severely impaired".

Does add from file still fail?

Comment 6

[Martin]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #5)

With respect, by your definition in comment 1 virtually every bug would be S2, which isn't practical. DDG is a small part of search, and even search isn't a core critical function to TB - so this doesn't qualify as "severely impaired".

First, it's not my definition, it's Mozilla's definition. I respected that, you seem to not only counter that, but even offend other people by simply calling it "not practical".
Second, here's what I call "not practical": having to deal with a flawed UI/UX, not capable of such trivial task like showing available search engines in full & equally among TB installations.
Third, having to wait for 6 months for such trivial fix is - by all respect - an absolute disgrace, TBH. Being a software engineer myself (in other fields, so can't fix it myself that easily, I admit), I cannot understand why so many people - each of them easily being capable of fixing it - still fail to simply just do that. And that's because the "Import from file" still fails as I tried just now.

Does add from file still fail?

As mentioned earlier, yes it does.

Lastly, I insist on getting S2 back as it does impair Major functionality/product severely - it's the 3rd context menu option right after copy & select all, so everything else in that ~20 items tall menu is obviously less important. Not to mention that the last part of S2's definition, and a satisfactory workaround does not exist, is fulfilled, too.

Comment 7

[Andrei Hajdukewycz [:sancus]]

Search engines isn't missing DuckDuckGo on current beta(91) as far as I can tell, I checked in a new profile and it's there.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Martin, are you still seeing this problem? And "Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Services.search.addEngine is not a function" in error console?

Comment 9

[Martin]

Can't test that as the TB installation was on my workstation which I lost access to when I left that company several months ago.
But I happily notice that this bug remained untouched for another 5 months after my previous comment - which puts it just days prior to having an anniversary.

Thanks to all TB developers for this amount of caring for your users. Honestly, I'm that much thankful for the experience you provided me with.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thanks for the update.