266615 - no error message when installing incompatible extension with -install-global-extension

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Jared]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041026 Firefox/1.0RC1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041026 Firefox/1.0RC1

I'm trying to install extensions with firefox.exe -install-global-extension
extension.xpi.  However, it is failing to install the extension.  A "temp"
folder is created in %programfiles%\Mozilla Firefox\extensions\, and the temp
filder contains a copy of the xpi I'm trying to install (though renamed to
temp-eyw.xpi), but it never gets installed.  I've tried this with the AdBlock
and Web Developer extensions, both of which install correctly through the
Extension Manager window in RC1, but both fail through the command line.

This issue may be related to bug 250847, which seems to detail the same problem
under Linux.  I have not been able to test this under Linux, but it fails on XP
every time.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install firefox
2. "%programfiles%\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -install-global-extension
webdeveloper_0.8.xpi
3. Start firefox and check to see if extension is installed

Actual Results:  
the extension is not installed

Expected Results:  
the extension should be installed

Comment 1

[Jared]

FYI:  I can install a global theme with a similar command:
firefox.exe -install-global-theme c:\path\to\theme.jar

This works perfectly.  However, I still cannot install extensions with:
firefox.exe -install-global-extension c:\path\to\extension.xpi

Just wanted to provide a little more info about this.

Comment 2

[Jared]

More information:

I've tried this with RC2 as well, and it still fails.  So, obviously this has
not been addressed (which, since this is still marked as UNCONFIRMED, isn't much
of a surprise).  Can anyone else PLEASE verify or refute this?  One way or
another, I'd like to get this figured out.

By the way, just for the heck of it I tried using the exact same method to
install extensions in Thunderbird 0.9, and it worked perfectly.  Don't know what
else I can do myself at this point...

I feel that this is a critical bug to be fixed before a 1.0 final release since
it will hamper redistribution, customization, and large-scale deployment efforts.

Comment 3

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

Works for me installing QuickNote 0.6 with bumped version number. It doesn't
work though (behaves as you described) if extension's maxversion (maximum
version of firefox the extension is compatible with) is less than 1.0, which is
probably the case with webdev.

Unless you provide more info this bug is invalid.
(it would be nice if you looked in webdev's xpi, it is a zip archive,
install.rdf and posted its maxversion).

Comment 4

[Jared]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Unless you provide more info this bug is invalid.
> (it would be nice if you looked in webdev's xpi, it is a zip archive,
> install.rdf and posted its maxversion).

Thanks for the suggestion.  As I said, I wasn't really sure how to proceed. 
This his been failing on three extensions that I'm trying (Web Developer,
Adblock, and Mouse Gestures.  Two of them list a maxversion of ".10+" and the
other ".10".  Since I downloaded these directly from update.mozilla.org, and
they work with a manual install, I didn't think that the version would be a
problem.  Guess I may have been wrong.

Edit:  Yep, that's the problem.  I bumped each of the maxversion's up to 1.0 in
my three extensions, and now all of them install properly.  Thank you!

However, this still seems somewhat flawed.  Why should I be able to successfully
install an extension through the extension manager, but then have the same .xpi
fail through the command line?  Seems to me that Firefox should be consistent in
it's version checking.

Comment 5

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

There are two possible problems here:
1) no error message is shown when installing incompatible extension with
-install-global-extension
2) when installing with "-install-global-extension", firefox doesn't "phone
home" to check for compatibility updates. (when you normally try to install an
extension with incompatible min/maxversions, firefox contacts either
update.moz.org or tries to read file specified in <updateURL> tag in
install.rdf. If it is finds out that the min/maxversion for this extension was
updated and the extension can now be installed, it installs it. Otherwise it
displays an "incompatible version" error message).

I can confirm issue (1).
comment 4 ("this still seems somewhat flawed...") makes me wonder if issue (2)
is also present. Were you connected to internet when you tried installing with
-install-global-extension?

Please, decide what issue this bug will be about (and file another bug for
another issue if you think you're seeing both). Thanks

Comment 6

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

confirming this bug: "no error message when installing incompatible extension
with -install-global-extension"

Steps to reproduce:
1. Download an extension with em:maxversion < app.extensions.version (e.g. 0.10)
2. (make sure it doesn't have an update available or you're not connected to the
internet; see also comment 5)
3. Try to install the extension with firefox.exe -install-global-extension

Actual results:
extension not installed and no error message.

Expected results:
error message: Extension X is not compatible with Firefox 1.0.

--

reporter, if you experience issue 2 (see comment 5), please file a separate bug
for it. Thanks.

Comment 7

[gnarwhal]

I experience the same incomplete installation of extensions using the -install-global-extension command.  I have modified the version statements in the install.rdf to no avail. I can recreate this with the latest stable Adblock plus, mozgest, and flashblock, on firefox 1.0.7

Comment 8

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

These options are going to be removed by bug 396510