285544 - Safe Mode doesn't work

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050309
Firefox/1.0+

When trying to load Firefox in safe mode in order to verify another bug, I've
found that apparently safe mode no longer works anymore.  I tried to load
Firefox with the following command:
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -safe-mode

Firefox loads, but the extensions are clearly still loaded as well. 
Furthermore, the extensions appear to be disabled in the Extension Manager even
though they're active.

From what I can tell, this first regressed with the 23-Feb-2005 nightly.

Comment 1

[Jim Ginn]

I see this as well. Nominating.

Comment 2

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

After a look at nsExtensionManager.js it appears that removing the entries in
extensions.ini or removing the extensions.ini file itself when starting in
safe-mode will fix this and a quick test where I remove the extensions.ini in
the code for safe-mode does in fact start Firefox with the extensions disabled.
The file is then auto-generated again when starting up normally. I am not sure
of the methodology that was intended to accomplish safe-mode now that the
chrome.manifest files are being used and though it does appear to solve this bug
there may be other ramifications.

Comment 3

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

The EM doesn't show them as disabled though... I'll see if I can figure it out.

Comment 4

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Attachment: patch

This patch removes the extensions.ini file if it exists when Firefox is started
in -safe-mode. I also changed the code so that it always resturns true when in
-safe-mode in nsExtensionManager_start. When starting up normally the
extensions.ini file is auto-generated so this does not cause any problems with
normal operation.

A couple of other things that I think should be done in
nsExtensionManager.js.in that I haven't included in the patch are:
a) move wasInSafeModeFile outside of the if statement in
nsExtensionManager_start since the var is used by both the if and else
b) around line 697 this._listener = aListener needs to be terminated with a ;

If you would like me to resubmit the patch with these additional items or open
another bug just let me know.

Comment 5

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Comment on attachment 176987 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

grrr... I forgot about global extensions

Comment 6

[mark]

assigned?

Comment 7

[Caleb]

has this been fixed by bug 286034 ?

Comment 8

[TimoT]

no, this is the exception I get now:

nsExtensionManager:start - (safe mode) failure, catching exception ...
TypeError: this._finalizeEnableDisable is not a function

Comment 9

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Attachment: patch

Benjamin - this seems like a simple fix for this bug but it seems a bit too
simple even though it appears to work properly.

Comment 10

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Comment on attachment 182912 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

As a temporary fix for 1.1a, this looks fine. I intend to rework safe mode to
be a lot simpler and less fragile after 1.1a.

Comment 11

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Comment on attachment 182912 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

a=asa

Comment 12

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

checked in - thanks timelyx - resolving fix.