304797 - profile installation fails if you don't have write permission to the mozilla program directory

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Installer: XPInstall Engine, defect)

Description

[Manuel Reimer]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; de-AT; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050728
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; de-AT; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050728

It is impossible to install a package as "regular user" if any of the files that
have to be installed is in use. The installation will always fail with Error
-202 (permission denied). The reason is that mozilla tries to write the file
"xpicleanup.dat" always to the Mozilla program directory (where regular users
normally don't have write permission). If the file that has to be installed is
in use, then installation will only succeed if "xpicleanup.dat" can be written
as mozilla needs it to auto-rename the "jarfilename.new" to "jarfilename.jar".

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
- Install a Mozilla 1.7.11 as root
- Log off and log in as regular user
- Start the newly installed Mozilla and install PrefBar to your profile
(http://prefbar.mozdev.org/)
- Shut down mozilla and restart it
- Now install the same PrefBar again
- You should get a message that there were permission problems and that you
don't seem to have write access to the mozilla/chrome directory
- In your install.log you'll find the message
   "Install **FAILED** with error -202"

- If you want you can now try the same as root (or give yourself write
permission to the Mozilla program directory) and you'll see that the file
"xpicleanup.dat" will get created to the Mozilla program directory.
Actual Results:  
It's impossible to install xpi-packages as regular user, even if you want to
install to your profile, as profile installation depends on write permission to
the Mozilla program directory.

Expected Results:  
Mozilla should write xpicleanup.dat to the profile directory if a profile
installation is done.

Marking "Critical" as I'll file a crash bug in a few seconds which depends on this.

Comment 1

[Manuel Reimer]

WONTFIX because this one was about the old "install.js" based XPI system, which is obsolete.