355191 - Can't manage search engines if default folder gets empty

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Roberto Ciang]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; zh-TW; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20060918 Firefox/2.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; zh-TW; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20060918 Firefox/2.0

We all know that search plugins for Firefox can be put either under /%Install Path%/searchplugins/ or under /%Profile%/searchplugins/, and we also know that in Firefox 2.0 there is going to be a very comvenient "Search Engine Manager" (it can not yet do automatic sorting for the search plugins, though).

I used to keep my search plugins under my /%Install Path%/searchplugins, but recently I found that it would be better to keep them under the profile folders, in order to bring them along to in upgrading Firefox. So I moved all of my old search plugins to my profile, and even cleared the new search plugins installed by 2.0 RC 1, to prevent duplication of the same search plugins. But after I have done that, Firefox 2.0 won't be able to detect any search plugins in anywhere! And an alert would come out before the Search Engine Manager (see attachment); then when Search Engine Manager comes out eventually, we can't control it, either.

I think the Search Engine Manager should ignore the installation folder if it's empty there, and detect on to the profile folder.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Clear all search plugins under /%Firefox Installation%/searchplugins/ (you can make backups first)
2. Launch or restart Firefox
3. Click "Manage search engines..." in the dropdown menu of the search plugins
4. See the failure alert and press "Done"
5. Find that the dialog is empty, and you can't use it

Actual Results:  
4. See the failure alert and press "Done"
5. Find that the dialog is empty, and you can't use i

Expected Results:  
Search plugins under /%Profile%/searchplugins/ should be loaded instead in the Search Engine Manager.

Comment 1

[Roberto Ciang]

Attachment: the failure alert

Comment 2

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061002 BonEcho/2.0
WFM, no assert here.

Comment 3

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Removing all the engines in the app directory is not supported, and I don't see a reason why you would need to do that, so I'm marking this INVALID.

If you disagree, please feel free to reopen this bug report.

Comment 4

[Roberto Ciang]

It's okay :)

Allow me to explain why I would move all my search plugins to the profile folder. It's mainly because Firefox would replace all search plugins under installation folder when people do an upgrading installation of new version Fx. So first if I want to keep them, I would have to backup them in another place first, and do the new installation. So, since we can also put the search plugins in the profile folder, I decided to keep them all there. And since I have all my old search plugins in the profile folder, then I don't need the new set in the installation folder any more, (including that Yahoo search plugin which I would *never* use), so I cleared them; this is where the issue begins...

Yeah, I now notice that if there are no search plugins under the installation folder, then other profiles won't have any, either. But anyway... I'm the only one using Firefox on my computer, and I use mostly only one profile, so... :p

Also, I would like to correct the steps to reproduce this bug, because people on Mozilla Taiwan Forum told me that this bug can only be reproduced if people delete all the search plugins *when* Firefox is still running.

I admit that this bug doesn't seem to be a major bug any more, and maybe very few people would repeat what I have done, though. But if anyone does happen to decide to migrate all his search plugins to the profile folder one day, then...

Or maybe Firefox should stop replacing search plugins during installation :p But I know this goes to another bug.

Comment 5

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Profile plugins should always override identically named shipped search plugins, so I don't see why there's a need for you to remove all the app-shipped plugins.