2007425 - Web Extensions Checking Permissions Over and Over, Lots of Console Errors

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Add-Ons: Extensions API, defect)

Description

[Mark Barnes [:WoofGrrrr]]

Attachment: Extension_Permission_Errors.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:146.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/146.0

Steps to reproduce:

I'm sorry to complain about something that's not really all that important, but...

I keep getting permission warnings and errors in the error console every time I open the "Manage Your Extensions Tab" and every time I install an (my own) extension (from a file.)

	[e-mail]	WARN	Loading extension '[e-mail]': Reading manifest: Warning processing permissions: Error processing permissions

I have exchanged emails with the extension developer, and they have assured me that the warning & error messages themselves are erroneous, and I believe they have entered a bug for that, but that's not why I'm bringing this up.

What I am wondering is, do these permissions checks need to be done so often? Every time I open the tab I get four such messages that take up nearly all of the debug console, and every time I add an extension (my own) I get two more.

This has been happening for quite some time. Months?

I've been working on several extensions, and I have been just ignoring it, but with the add, run, get errors, fix, add, run, get errors, fix, etc .... cycle, over and over, it's all become rather tedious.

I kinda thought these checks would only be necessary when the problem extension itself is actually added or loaded?

Again, I apologize for complaining about this.

Comment 1

[John Bieling]

folders is indeed not a valid permission.

https://webextension-api.thunderbird.net/en/mv3/permissions.html

Comment 2

[John Bieling]

The second reported error is also correctly reported, as mailTabs is not a valid permission either.

Comment 3

[Mark Barnes [:WoofGrrrr]]

Whether the permissions were valid or not wasn't my report.

It's that the checking of the permissions for (other!) extensions, and thus the reporting of errors, is done every time I install (my own) other extensions, and every time I open the "Manage Your Extensions" Tab.

Would it not be sufficient to check when the extension is installed and/or loaded?

Comment 4

[Mark Barnes [:WoofGrrrr]]

If I might re-open for visibility to as the question in the previous comment...

Comment 5

[John Bieling]

I closed this as there is not much I can do, and I think throwing errors due to an erroneous add-on manifest is a fair thing to do. The more it throws, the more it gets noted and eventually fixed. If you think this needs to be changed, you will have to file a bug with the upstream Mozilla implementation of the WebExtension framework.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=WebExtensions

Comment 6

[Mark Barnes [:WoofGrrrr]]

Fair enough, John. Thank you for answering my questions. I appreciate how helpful you are to learning extension developers like me.

I have opened an issued on the GitHub page for the extension. If the developer doesn't respond soon, I might try forking it and altering the manifest to see if everything still works.