254318 - Cannot click to install extensions from a webpage when Firefox is launched with the -profile option

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[John T. Haller (email is bugzilla2@)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.9.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.9.2

Clicking on an XPI to install an extension does not work properly when Firefox
is launched with the -profile commandline option.  This option allows you to
specify a location for the profile used on startup.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Launch Firefox with the -profile option specifying a profile location.
2. Click on an XPI within a webpage.
3. Click the Install button when the countdown runs out.

Actual Results:  
The extention is not installed and does not appear in the list of extensions.

Expected Results:  
The extension is installed and appears in the list of extensions.

You can currently work around this problem by downloading an XPI locally and
then doing a FILE - OPEN to install it.

Comment 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

bsmedberg, can you take a look at this?

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

John, are you sure this works when you don't use the -profile option? This may
be related to the whitelist. Do any errors appear in the JS console?

Comment 3

[John T. Haller (email is bugzilla2@)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> John, are you sure this works when you don't use the -profile option? This may
> be related to the whitelist. Do any errors appear in the JS console?

Yes, it occurs when attempting to install, for example, Googlebar directly from
update.mozilla.org.  The JS console is clear.

You can verify it yourself without mucking around with your installation of
profile by running PortableFirefox (which is how we realized it):
http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/

It isn't due to the launcher or batch file or UPX compression in the above
package, either.  It occurs with an unmodified ZIP download as well.

Comment 4

[Volkmar W. Pogatzki]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Yes, it occurs when attempting to install, for example, Googlebar directly 

WFM.
- Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040924 Firefox/0.10
- Clean profile
- Started with -P <profilename>
- Tried: https://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=33
- Installed Googlebar, no problems.

Comment 5

[Benjamin Smedberg]

volkmar: this bug is apparently about -profile <path> not -p <name>.

Comment 6

[Volkmar W. Pogatzki]

(In reply to comment #5)
> volkmar: this bug is apparently about -profile <path> not -p <name>.

Sorry for mis-reading. Just tested again with a new "g0sznrdy.test" profile
starting with

   /opt/firefox/firefox -profile ~/.mozilla/firefox/g0sznrdy.test/

But still no problem installing Googlebar or Adblock. Works perfectly!

Comment 7

[Justin Kerk]

WFM with Portable Firefox 1.0PR.

Comment 8

[Benjamin Smedberg]

I can't reproduce this.

Comment 9

[John T. Haller (email is bugzilla2@)]

ORIGINAL POSTER CONFIRMING:
This has apparently been fixed with 1.0PR.  It was broken in 0.9.3 and earlier.
 I was able to install multiple extensions with the new version.

Comment 10

[John T. Haller (email is bugzilla2@)]

Ok, I was able to nail down what the real difference is.  It turns out that my
original test case was wrong.  The difference is that in the portable profile I
was using, disk cache is disabled.  The behavior DID change in 1.0PR, but it
still fails.

So, XPI install from a webpage will fail when disk cache is set to 0 bytes. 
This occurs with a regular profile or with the -profile option.  I've updated
the bug summary to reflect this.

To reproduce:
1. Select TOOLS - OPTIONS - PRIVACY - CACHE
2. Set Use Up To: to 0 bytes and click OK.
3. Try to install an extension.

Actual Result:
After clicking the Install button, an error occurs:

Firefox could not download the file at
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/... (etc)
because: Download error

Expected Result:
Extension downloaded and installed.

If you re-enable cache, the XPI will install from the webpage.

Workaround: Download the XPI locally and do a FILE - OPEN on it.

Comment 11

[John T. Haller (email is bugzilla2@)]

blocking-aviary1.0 was removed when we thought this bug WORKSFORME
I think we should add this back on as the number of people with (1) disk cache
disabled and (2) wanting to install extensions will not be insignificant.

Comment 12

[John T. Haller (email is bugzilla2@)]

I am changing the summary back to the original (-profile bug) as this is what it
was submitted as and changing course midway through a bug is confusing.  I've
opened a new bug (Bug 26854) for the disk cache disabled = no XPI install issue.
 If you wish to track this bug, CC yourself on the new bug.

Comment 13

[John T. Haller (email is bugzilla2@)]

(In reply to comment #12)
> I've
> opened a new bug (Bug 26854) for the disk cache disabled = no XPI install issue.
>  If you wish to track this bug, CC yourself on the new bug.

The new bug is actually Bug 262854.

Comment 14

[Worcester12345]

needs aviary landing keyword