312465 - Macromedia Authorware plugin is not recognised by plugin finder service

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Plugins, defect)

Description

[Przemyslaw Bialik]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20051013 Firefox/1.4.1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20051013 Firefox/1.4.1

 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Visit http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/welcome/authorwareonly.html
2. Click 'Click here to download plugin'
Actual Results:  
Message: "No suitable plugins were found."

Expected Results:  
Message: "The following plugins are available" and the plugin can be installed
like it is with other macromedia plugins (without the need of manual download /
install).

Comment 1

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

Does the plugin work in FF (after you manually install it) ?

Comment 2

[Przemyslaw Bialik]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Does the plugin work in FF (after you manually install it) ?
Yes.
FYI I've filed also Bug 312456

Comment 3

[Peter van der Woude [:Peter6]]

I'm not so sure we should install a fairly unknown plugin and the current
service does lead to the manual download and installation.
There are tons of plugins out there that Joe User will probably never look at.

I guess that makes this bug Wontfix

(someone could ask Macromedia to make an extension to install the plugin though)

Comment 4

[David Jameson]

There is an issue here...if the user clicks on "install plugin", firefox shouldn't say "no suitable plugins were found", because that isn't the case - if you click on "manual install" it DOES install the plugin. That message just confuses users.

Mozilla works the way I would expect - it goes to the pluginspage when you click on the plugin icon. Firefox was changed so that it brings up the message "no suitable plugins were found" if the plugin isn't listed on addons.mozilla.org, along with the "manual install" button. Only a few plugins such as java, flash and realplayer are listed on addons.mozilla.org. Firefox really should be changed back to the original functionality, because the way it currently works just confuses users. There is no security issue because the user still has to click Install to actually install the plugin, and with firefox the user also has to add the site to the list of allowed install sites. See also bug 341448.

Comment 5

[Cameron]

Does addons.mozilla.org have anything at all to do with the plugin finder service? I don't know how it works, but when I last looked the plugin page was just a static html page, not generated from any database of "known plugins" or anything.

If not, I'd suggest -> Firefox | Plugin Finder service.

Comment 6

[David Jameson]

The page that firefox brings up when you click on "find out more about plugins" in the plugin finder service is this one:

https://pfs.mozilla.org/plugins/?action=missingplugins&mimetype=application/x-authorware-map&appID={ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}&appVersion=2006050817&clientOS=Linux%20i686%20(x86_64)&chromeLocale=en-US

which seems to be the same page as

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/plugins/

Both just list the same, few plugins, and I assume the database also just contains these plugins.

Comment 7

[Cameron]

(In reply to comment #6)
> (...)
> https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/plugins/
> (...)
> I assume the database also just
> contains these plugins.
> 

This is the assumption I am questioning my friend :)

Comment 8

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

It's basically inconceivable that jst is the one to fix this bug, so de-assigning.  I'm trying to figure my way around the plugin finder setup right now, so I'll look into this too, but it sounds like we'd need a package from Macromedia to put it up anyway.

Issues with the Firefox UI should be posted in the product and component that Cameron mentions in comment 5; this component is just about the operation of the service/server itself.

Comment 9

[David Jameson]

I've already logged a PFS bug regarding the operating of the firefox UI (see bug 341448). But nobody seems to be interested in fixing it or even looking at it (Doron just marked it invalid and removed all the cc's), hence the comment I posted here to see if anyone else is interested in it. There is definitely an issue here - firefox should work properly with plugins not listed on addons.mozilla.org without giving confusing error messages.

Comment 10

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

Updating PFS bugs -- nobody has touched these in a long time, so I am assigning to default, so we can pick them off the list one-by-one.

Comment 11

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

This isn't *quite* invalid, but it's either a dup of a PFS bug or otherwise miscategorized, and I don't think it's doing anyone any good here.