285962 - -install-global-extension creates very deep tem-tree and does not install (since 1.0.1)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[m-bugzilla]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050216 Firefox/1.0+
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050216 Firefox/1.0+

-install-global-theme broken in 1.0.1

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Tried to boil down the problem to the following minimum steps:

1. Do a fresh Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating system installation (can't
   say whether this is necessary, but I wanted to make sure that no left-overs
   from previous installations on the machine could contribute to the problem).

2. Log on as administrative user

3. Install Firefox 1.0.1 with silent options (-ms -nosplash),
   Note: Reproducing the error does not depend on the installation without UI.

4. Directly after the installation, try to install a global extension with:
   C:\FF\firefox -install-global-theme file://///server/share/.../extension.xpi
   Note: The error also occurs, if firefox is started once and terminated. Tried
   this, because I thought it might have to do with setting up the profiles.

Actual Results:  
- The extensions are not installed, BUT(!) a nicely growing tree below
  C:\FF\extensions/temp can be observed...

- For each extension another tree is going to grow there (only to be stopped
  by Windows, when the maximum path length is exceeded).

- Obviously, Firefox has trouble with the handling of temporary directories.
  Since there were changes to the temporary directory handling in 1.0.1, did
  that security fix break something else?


Expected Results:  
Should have installed the extension?

Why is the problem important for me?

We're trying to deploy Firefox silently (not using your MSIs, because they can
deploy Firefox via GPOs but they are unable to withdraw the software... My
lesson #1 in software deployment: Never deploy anything that you cannot call back!

So way are the extensions important? Because we're targeting a multi-lingual
user community and thus use the 'en-US' base version with a bunch of locales
plus the language switcher thrown in.

Reason for severity "major": This is a show-stopper for the roll-out!

My next try will be to deploy version 1.0, let it install the global
extensions and then upgrade to 1.0.1 in a second phase. Any suggestions
for better work-arounds?

Thanks for providing this nice piece of software!

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/extensions/commandlineoptions.html

This report is rather inconsistent, are you using -install-global-theme or
-install-global-extension?   The summary says the latter, but the description
says the former...

Comment 2

[!@#$%^&*()_+]

This bug also occurs on both Firefox 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 under Windows XP when a 
relative path is used, i.e.:
"c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -install-global-
extension .\extension.xpi

The temp directory under the Firefox install directory's extensions folder is 
repeated within itself until Windows stops it, leaving ~37MB of directory mess 
there. The extension does not install. This bug is reproducible every time on 
both fresh and not very fresh installs of Firefox.

A workaround is to use an absolute pathname for the extension, i.e.:
"c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -install-global-extension 
drive:\path\to\extension.xpi
which works as it should

Comment 3

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

1.0.2 is out

Comment 4

[John Collins]

This bug is alive and well on 1.05 and 1.06...at least in regard to the use of
relative paths

Comment 5

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

Is this still an issue on the 1.8 branch or the trunk?

I was able to install a global extension using a relative path without any problem.

Comment 6

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

This is WFM on trunk and MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH