307765 - De-selected "automatic update" option is sometimes mysteriously re-selected

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect)

Description

[Matthew L. Creech]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4

I disabled any sort of automatic checking for updates, since I'm using the
just-released 1.5 beta1 and there are components that are incompatible.  If
Firefox is started manually, things operate smoothly and I get no annoying
incompatibility warnings.  If I click a link from Outlook, Firefox tells me that
I need to update all my extensions (even though I know they work, and a normal
"check for updates" says they're fine).  When I close that window and the
browser opens, the options in "Advanced -> Update" are structured differently. 
If I then close the browser and start it manually, I get an incompatibility
dialog for TalkBack, and when I continue and check my options, the automatic
update checkbox for "FireFox" is magically re-enabled.

This could be related to Outlook, but the problem has never occurred before so I
tend to think it's related to some change in 1.5b1.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Disable all automatic updates via "Options -> Advanced -> Update"
2. Close FireFox
3. Click a link from Outlook with FireFox as the default browser
4. Close FireFox
5. Start FireFox up regularly (from the Start menu)
Actual Results:  
I received an incompatibility dialog for the TalkBack component, and automatic
updates were re-enabled.

Expected Results:  
Not performed any kind of version checks, since I had explicitly disabled them.

The *first* problem is that when you click the link from IE, FireFox reports
that all components are incompatible with the new version, even though it's not
true.  That seems to be where things start **** out.

Comment 1

[Ben Turner (not reading bugmail, use the needinfo flag!)]

will try to repro later this pm

Comment 2

[Ben Turner (not reading bugmail, use the needinfo flag!)]

Matthew, do you have two versions installed on your machine? Like an old 1.0.6 
and a new 1.5b1?

Comment 3

[Matthew L. Creech]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Matthew, do you have two versions installed on your machine? Like an old 1.0.6 
> and a new 1.5b1?

I don't think so (not sure how to tell - I've only got one firefox binary, and
only one is shown in the "Add/Remove Programs" dialog).  This machine has had
various versions from pre-1.0 up through 1.0.6, then DP alpha, and now 1.5 beta1.

Can you not duplicate it?  If not, I'll try to figure out if there's something
more specific that makes it happen.

Comment 4

[Matthew L. Creech]

Some additional clarification: forget the part about Outlook - the same thing
happens when I try to open a local file (from explorer).  However, it doesn't
happen if I open the same file from the command line ("[...]firefox.exe
blah.htm").  Not sure what to make of it, but maybe that'll narrow it down a bit.

Comment 5

[Ben Turner (not reading bugmail, use the needinfo flag!)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20050920 
Firefox/1.4

Sorry, Matthew. I haven't been able to reproduce.

Comment 6

[Matthew L. Creech]

FYI, just upgraded to 1.5b2, the same problem still exists.

(I realize there's not much you can do if you can't reproduce it, I'm just
letting you know it's still there for me)

Comment 7

[Matthew L. Creech]

Okay...  I tried 1.5-rc1 (after an uninstall) to no avail.  So I finally just manually deleted every Firefox-related file I could find, and did a fresh install of 1.5-rc1.  Things are now working fine and this problem has gone away.

FYI, after uninstalling via "Add/Remove Programs" and manually removing "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox", I still had a default browser available that I found out was located at "C:\Program Files\Deer Park Alpha 2".  (I always use the default install directories)  Removing that seems to be what fixed things for me.  (Or maybe it's the other way around and "Deer Park Alpha 2" should have existed)

I may have done something strange when I updated from a stable release that caused it to create the two separate install directories, I don't know.  But it's working for me now, so I guess you can close out this bug unless you think this is an issue with migrating from 1.0 to 1.5 that needs to be looked at.  Thanks for the help!

Comment 8

[Ben Turner (not reading bugmail, use the needinfo flag!)]

Thanks for updateing, Matt. If this crops up again feel free to reopen the bug.