271832 - Cannot install extensions (prob. because of a permission problem)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Alex Lyman]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

If one tries to install a Java-dependant extension when Java is not installed,
fail, but in an odd way.  In such a case, the extension manager reports that the
extension will be installed after a restart.  After a restart, the extensions
remain in that state (reboots of the machine do not help, either).  Uninstalling
just makes it say that the extension will be uninstalled after restart, with the
same conditions that installing had.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Clean install, no Java plugin.
2. Try to install Java-dependant extension (Tabbrowser Prefferences for example)
3. Restart Firefox

Actual Results:  
Extension not installed.  Extension Manager reports that it will install after a
restart.  Go to step 3.

Expected Results:  
After Step 2, report an error saying Java plugin is not installed, and remove
the extension from the extension manager.

If this is NP-complete, it would be atleast nice if the extension manager would
keep track of how many times it has tried to install an extension, and remove it
if it has failed too many times, with a message to the user about it.

I can't say whether or not this has been fixed in trunk, as downloading it   
will take a couple days, which I'm not currently willing to use my bandwidth
for.  I assume it hasn't, as I can't find any record of any similar bugs here on
bugzilla.

Comment 1

[Alex Lyman]

While my first analysis is still (mostly) correct, I just discovered an
underlying cause.

The bug only occurs when not installing Java-based extensions as root (logged in
as a regular user).

Comment 2

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

Tabbrowser Preferences is *not* dependant on Sun Java. There are few extensions
that require Java.

It is true however, that almost all of extensions are written using *JavaScript*
language, which is not the same as Sun Java. JavaScript parser is included in
each mozilla or firefox installation.

Your problem, I believe, is some kind of permission problem. Did you run Firefox
as root right after installation?

Please try to figure out what is your problem.

Comment 3

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

This works for me and other people. Probably you misconfigured something.

If you have more information to share, feel free to reopen this bug.