287656 - globally installed extensions are treated as “old” by new profiles

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 248326

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, defect)

Description

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

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050317 Firefox/1.0.2

Under a new installation of Firefox 1.0.2 on Windows XP, the functionality and 
ability to access an extension that has been installed globally with -install-
global-extension depends upon whether or not the profile from which it is 
being accessed was created before or after the installation of the extension. 
This appears to be a result of Firefox attempting to disable extensions that 
were previously installed in order to prevent obsolete extensions from being 
enabled, but note that there are no extensions on the system before the 
installation of 1.0.2, and that problems occur with extensions that are not 
obsolete as indicated by their install.rdf files.

Profiles created before the installation of the global extension have no 
problem accessing and fully utilizing the extension, while profiles created 
after the installation pop-up a dialog indicating that old extensions have 
been disabled, and cannot use the global extensions.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Do a fresh install of Firefox 1.0.2
2. Open and close Firefox once from the same account as the install to get 
initial settings to take hold.
3. Create some new profiles from other accounts on the computer by opening and 
closing Firefox from those accounts. I have used a couple of Administrator and 
Limited User accounts, but I don’t think that matters.
4. Install a current extension globally, for example web developer 0.9.3 from 
http://www.chrispederick.com/work/firefox/webdeveloper/
(Make sure to use an absolute path to the extension to avoid the directory 
recursion bug.)
An example command line is:
"c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -install-global-extension 
c:\webdeveloper.xpi
5. Create a new profile under an account that does not yet have a profile by 
opening and Firefox from said account. Note the dialog box warning that old 
extensions have been disabled. Close firefox.
6. Now open Firefox from a profile that was established before the extension 
installation. Try to use the extension. Everything works peachy.
7. Open Firefox from a profile created after the global extension 
installation. The extension does not work, although it does show up in the 
list of extensions, and some options may be edited.

Actual Results:  
results are indicated along with the steps

Expected Results:  
I would expect Firefox to treat the extension consistently, if the extension 
is deemed ok to install, then both old and new profiles should have access to 
it. If it is not safe to use, then old and new profiles should both not be 
able to access it. But determining that it might not be safe for new profiles, 
but is fine for old profiles to use doesn’t make sense. Since the extension 
had been installed with the current firefox version’s global installer, and 
that installer found the extension ok to install, then Firefox should also 
allow new profiles under this version use the extension.

I keep all profiles separate under different Windows XP accounts.
I use right-click "Run as..." to start firefox from the different accounts.

Setting user_pref("extensions.disabledObsolete", false); in prefs.js doesn't 
help.

Comment 1

[PikeUK]

This is because the packages supplied by some extensions still contain pre-0.9
extension hooks (in addition to the 0.9+ install.rdf stuff), see Bug 248326 for
more details.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 248326 ***