409495 - False report that there is no new release available

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 407875

(Toolkit :: Application Update, defect)

Description

[Thomas L Jones]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

Under Win XP, Firefox version 2.0.0.11 was released on November 30, 2007. However, under FF 2.0.0.10, I was told, falsely, that no new updates existed. Even as I write this, the button to check for an update is greyed out (FF 2.0.0.11 > Help > Check for updates)

I do my day-to-day surfing with the Administrator privilege turned off for security reasons. (Please see [1]) When a new version of Firefox is released, I should be alerted, after which I would have little difficulty switching to the Administrative account and installing the update in the usual way.

Note that I had been running under an obsolete, insecure version of Firefox for THREE WEEKS, through no fault of my own. Please fix.

Thomas L. Jones, PhD, Computer Science
DrJones at alum dot MIT dot edu

[1] http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/05/the_importance_of_the_limited.html


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Under Win XP, switch to Limited User Account
2. Go to FF 2.0.0.11 and click Help > About; "check for updates" button is greyed out.
3.
Actual Results:  
(see above)

Expected Results:  
The button should have been clickable

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

> I was told, falsely, that no new updates existed.

Who or what told you that?  Or did you incorrectly infer that from the "Check for Updates" menu item being grayed out?

The menu item being grayed out is bug 318855.

Comment 2

[Thomas L Jones]

Under the Administrative account, in FF 2.0.0.10, I clicked Help > Check for updates  I was then told, falsely, that no updates existed. In fact, FF 2.0.0.11 had been released several weeks before.

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

Weird.  Nick, any ideas why that might be happening?

Comment 4

[Nick Thomas [:nthomas] (UTC+12)]

Probably hard to tell if 2.0.0.10 is now overwritten by 2.0.0.11. There was only one RC for 2.0.0.10, so no way to get a build with a 2.0.0.10 version that we then don't serve updates to (unless the channel was changed).

We could verify that the query 2.0.0.11 is making is normal. The easiest way to do that is to install the LiveHTTPHeaders extension from
  http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org
restart, go Tools > Live HTTP Headers, Help > Check for Updates, and look for the url https://aus2.mozilla.org/...

Comment 5

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> and look for the url https://aus2.mozilla.org/...

And then report the full URL here. We want to check the parameters to make sure
 - your browser is requesting the correct thing
   (it's built dynamically, maybe there's a client bug)
 - the server responds correctly to what you're asking for

You can also get the extension from mozilla.org which won't require you to fiddle with the addon security settings
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3829

Comment 6

[Thomas L Jones]

In 2.0.0.11, as seen by the prudent user, the "Automatically check for updates" button is greyed out. The button is normal in the Administrative account.

The "prudent user" is defined as someone who does her or her day-to-day surfing under a "Limited User Account" (LUA).

Probably this is the proximate cause of the failure to alert prudent users of an update.

Windows XP.

Thomas Jones

Comment 7

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Ok, the check for updates button was greyed out per comment #0 so a check for updates was never performed and this is a dupe of bug 407875