1792756 - Background tasks with a persistent profile can display a visible error dialog if Firefox is downgraded

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Background Tasks, defect, P3)

Description

[Robin Steuber (she/her) [:bytesized]]

Attachment: xulrunner profile error message

I'm guessing a little at these STR. I haven't actually tried to reproduce this "from scratch". I'm also guessing a bit at the regression bug number. But I think that I might understand what is happening here.

STR:

1. Install version 105 Release Firefox on Windows.
2. Open the Windows Task Scheduler and run the "Background Update" task for the new installation.
3. Pave over the install with version 104 Release Firefox.
4. Once again run the "Background Update" task for the installation.

Expected results:
Background Update will work, or at least fail silently.

Actual results:
An error message is displayed: "This profile was last used with a newer version of this application. Please create a new profile."

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Set release status flags based on info from the regressing bug 1775132

:nalexander, since you are the author of the regressor, bug 1775132, could you take a look? Also, could you set the severity field?

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Comment 2

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

There's a few things happening here:

• this is expected behaviour: there's a legitimate profile downgrade
• background tasks shouldn't pop a MessageBox at all, but there are clearly some paths unaccounted for

We might want to:

• add telemetry and monitoring for background task profile downgrades
• avoid the MessageBox in background task mode
• ignore profile downgrades in the background task
• figure out how to recover from downgraded profiles: can we blow the profile away entirely?

Comment 3

[Robin Steuber (she/her) [:bytesized]]

Just going to post this link to where (I believe) this message comes from in case it is useful when we go to fix this:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/dbb83041d986f8de513d98099f66fed257565d9e/toolkit/xre/nsAppRunner.cpp#3291-3297

Comment 4

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:Amir, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 5

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

P3 'cuz we should fix this, S4 'cuz it's unlikely to impact many users and there is a work-around: delete the contents of the offending Background Tasks Profiles/<...> profile directory.

Comment 6

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Set release status flags based on info from the regressing bug 1775132