264282 - The Plugin Finder Service never tells what type of plugin is needed, even if it fails to locate a plugin (mime type)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Toolkit Graveyard :: Plugin Finder Service, defect)

Description

[Dan Tilden]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.1

The Plugin Finder Service window should say somewhere what type of plugin is
needed, especially if it cannot be located.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Go to a site with a plugin that isn't on the PFS database.
Actual Results:  
The PFS wizard appears, then exits, saying that no suitable plugins could be found.

Expected Results:  
I think the wizard should say that no suitable plugins could be found for <type
of plugin>

Comment 1

[Fernando Pinillos Villatoro]

This bug is new in Mozilla 1.0.
In 0.9.3 and previous versions you could see the type of plugin in the error
message box.

Comment 2

[andrew.ferrier]

*** Bug 266427 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

*** Bug 291692 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

There is no benefit in showing the mimetype, as it will confuse 99% of people,
and the rest can look at the HTML source for the mimetype.

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

I disagree !
Did you ever supported someone on IRC with this problem and he is on a page that
needs login ?
It's a pain in the ass to tell him to look in the source to find the filetype !
It may not help "Joe user" but it will help many average users.

Comment 6

[José Jeria]

I also disagree with this. 

I dont see how not showing the mime-type is better than just give a non-helping
message and the solution to search for it in the html source. Which is not
always easy for people, since it requires from them to know html as well.

Comment 7

[Hans Deragon]

I agree with comment #5
(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=264282#c5).  The extra information
will not hurt.  And many who are computer illiterate have access to someone who
knows a bit about computers and could provide help.  Nothing frustrates me more
when one of my friends ask me for help and I cannot figure out what is going on
because the software does not spew enough information.

Now granted, you suggest that someone like me could lookup the html.  But its
still a pain and what if more than one mime-type appear in an html page, but
only one fails?  How to figure out which one fails, quickly?  You are making my
job harder.

Comment 8

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

Then ask them to click on the "Find out more about Plugins ..." link and tell
them to pastethe URL it loads - it contains all non-installed plugins.

Example:
https://pfs.mozilla.org/plugins/?action=missingplugins&mimetype=application/x-java-applet2&mimetype=applicatiodn/x-mtxs&appID={ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}&appVersion=2005030606&clientOS=Windows%20NT%205.1&chromeLocale=en-US

Comment 9

[alanjstr]

I don't think that URL does what you think it should do.  It only lists a
limited set of plugins that we've put on UMO.  I would prefer to see a message
like "We're sorry, but no plugin was found for application/x-java-applet2.  You
can try <a
href="http://www.google.com/search?q=application%2Fx-java-applet2&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial">searching</a."

Comment 10

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

again - the URL (not the web page) contains all mimetypes we couldn't install.

Comment 11

[Hans Deragon]

Nice.  I understand the URL.  But do expect alot of duplicates of this bug,
because even technical people will not think of clicking on the link and check
the URL for the list of missing plugins.

Of course, you could avoid bug duplicates by having the mime-type show up in the
dialog...

Comment 12

[Daniel Mota Leite]

why setting somehere the mimetype is confusing to users?!

instead of saying "firefox is now searching avaliable plugins...", why not put
"firefox is now searching avaliable plugins for (mimetype)..."

i cant see how this confuse anyone, and it only helps for problem solving and
installing in computers not connect to the firewall (internal webservers,
restrictive proxy, dialup users seeing offline pages, etc)

sorry Doron, but saying "check the source" is stupid, not only you have big and
hard to read web pages, but also plugins loaded by javascript, loaded by other
plugins and full window, no-menus plugins that you cant view the source without
hacking it

also, many people can understand what mimetype is "talking about", but cant read
a html page

the url is a workaround, but far from perfect, try to turn offline your firefox,
click on a plugin that you dont have... now wait... and wait... until it
timeout, just to see what damn plugins you are missing...

and no, not all people see webpages online, half the world users still use
dialup, and most of then do what they can to spend less time connected online

if i can know prior connecting what plugin i need, the better, no need to spend
time searching for plugins that i already know that dont work

finally, for a browser that wants to be userfriendly and not confuse the users,
asking to check the URL to know what mime its failing is ...err... at very least
idiot
how many people do you think that will guess that? i already clicked on that url
several times and never saw the mimetypes in the url, and being a long url, most
people will never see it

prior finding this bug, i told averyone that asked me how to check the plugin to
go check the html, so neither me and my friends ever saw the "missing mimetypes"
in the URL

the only way to really solve this problem is to put the mimetype in the webpage,
near the missing plugin icon (if there is enough space), or (maybe the simpler
and better solution), change the message that i wrote in the start of this message.

thanks and sorry about the long message

Comment 13

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

This is opensource, patches are welcome.

Comment 14

[Indulis Bernsteins]

I agree with the comments that the plugin error message should give enough
detail for a computer literate user or support person to figure out what is
missing.  Reading through html is not an option! The web page I am looking at is
complex with hundreds of URLs in it.... 

And reading the URL of the web page I am sent to is a real kludge (sorry but it
is!).

Comment 15

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

*** Bug 309846 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 16

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

Attachment: Switch to Unknown Plugin (mimetype)

Comment 17

[Sébastien Auger]

(In reply to comment #16)
> Created an attachment (id=203444) [edit]
> Switch to Unknown Plugin (mimetype)
> 

looks good, we should get this on the trunk right after the review to consider taking this to 1.8.1

Comment 18

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

Comment on attachment 203444 [details] [diff] [review]
Switch to Unknown Plugin (mimetype)

not rtl friendly

Comment 19

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

Attachment: better patch

Comment 20

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

*** Bug 318701 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 21

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

Comment on attachment 203802 [details] [diff] [review]
better patch

sounds like a good ff2 candidate

Comment 22

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

checked into trunk

Comment 23

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

landed on the 1.8.x branch

Comment 24

[François Gagné]

Attachment: Testcase: A page with an unknown embed mimetype

Comment 25

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

(In reply to comment #24)
> Created an attachment (id=209167) [edit]
> Testcase: A page with an unknown embed mimetype
> 

Is this supposed to show off a bug with the patch?

Comment 26

[François Gagné]

reply to comment 25: It's just a easy way to verify it ;) (the patch works just fine)