313071 - Change extensions internal compatibility information to match with AMO

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Developer Pages, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Michael]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20051019 Firefox/1.6a1
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20051019 Firefox/1.6a1

Proposal: When compatibility information is changed on AMO, AMO should
automatically rewrite the install.rdf file within the extension to match.

The reason for this is that many extension authors simply update their listings
to say their extension is compatible with the latest release of Firefox. The
problem is you still get many comments like:

"Used this on FF 1.0.7 and it works great. But sadly it does not support 1.5 beta 2"

I think the problem is that they download the extension and install later
offline (if they were online then Firefox would check AMO and let them install
it). Firefox 1.5 already rewrites install.rdf for installed extensions after it
detects a change in compatibility information during an update.


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[alanjstr]

I believe that Firefox is supposed to check the update service and look at the
update.rdf value.   

1) You can't change the install.rdf in a signed package.
2) You invalidate any checksum

Comment 2

[Michael]

Ok, I can understand the problem with my proposal. Indeed Firefox does check the
update server but as you can see from the extension I've listed:
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1136

It doesn't seem to help users which I can only guess means they are installing a
downloaded copy when they are not connected to the internet. Are you allowed to
submit an updated extension with the same version number?

Comment 3

[alanjstr]

Resubmitting the same version will blow away the existing one.  Then you have to
wait to get approved again.

It could be that the update.rdf isn't being served with the right value.

Comment 4

[Michael]

Ok, thanks.

Comment 5

[Geoff Smith]

UMO returns invalid update.rdf info in some cases for some extensions.  So even
though firefox attempts to check with UMO to see if there is a new version, the
process fails and the extension gets disabled.

I'm pretty sure that alanjstr reported a bug for this but for the life of me I
can't find it in bugzilla, nor can I remember what the exact issue with the
update.rdf was.

If you can find out which bug it was, or remember what the issue was with
update.rdf, I might have a crack at fixing it.  It's probably causing a lot of
extensions to be disabled unnecessarily.

Comment 6

[alanjstr]

It probably had something to do with sorting.

Comment 7

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

(comment 1)
> 1) You can't change the install.rdf in a signed package.
> 2) You invalidate any checksum

Come on. Almost nobody signs their packages. Most people don't care about
checksums. Yet, in order to make our extensions work for people who download and
then install them while off-line, we ought to re-upload an extension with a
bumped maxVersion in install.rdf.

Why not automate the process? If the package is not signed, show an "Update
install.rdf in the XPI" checkbox on the editversion page, and if the author
ticks it, repackage the XPI (possibly using a different filename).

And, please if you close the bug, at least close it as wontfix. It's obviously
valid.

Comment 8

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

Mass change - bugs to be read / (re)confirmed.

Comment 9

[Rob Marshall [tH]]

*** Bug 352369 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 10

[Thomas Bertels]

*** Bug 317650 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11

[Thomas Bertels]

*** Bug 347252 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Thomas Bertels]

About the maxVersion :
Since Firefox 1.5 now checks the update.rdf file on installation, this is only a problem for users which install extensions offline.
So there are two choices :
- Don't change anything (on the current behavior) but tell on the "Edit [extensions_name]" page that the maxVersion change only modifies the update.rdf file.
- Check if the extension isn't signed and then edit also the extension itself (install.rdf file).

About the minVersion :
It seems to be better to remove the possibility to change it (see bug 347252).

Comment 13

[Mike Shaver (:shaver -- probably not reading bugmail closely)]

We've been on both sides of this issue in the past, but I think that since we want to see more and more add-ons signed, this is a WONTFIX.