421431 - Browser fails to refresh mimeTypes[] prior to search for and load plug-in.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[danielle.pham]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008030305 Minefield/3.0b4pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b4pre) Gecko/2008030305 Minefield/3.0b4pre

If Java Plugin (JRE) is installed while FF is opened (without any JPI library loaded onto the browser process space), after installation, when trying to launch an applet, FF won't be able to recognize the newly installed Java Plugin (JRE), unless mimeTypes[] is flushed (e.g, by either sending a about:plugins, or call JavaScript refresh(), or restart the browser).

Instead of having end user restart the browser, Firefox should update mimeTypes[] array as the first step in its search for plugin when the browser renders any active contents that requires plugin (nsPluginHostImpl::FindPlugins()).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Launch FF browser on Windows, say WinXP. Do not load any applet on it.
2. Without closing the browser, go to http://java.com and download latest version of JRE.
3. After installation, launch an applet (http://java.sun.com/products/plugin/1.5.0/demos/plugin/applets/Clock/example1.html)
4. Applet won't get launch because FF can't recognize the newly installed JRE.
5. Restart the browser or send about:plugins.
6. Relaunch the applet, now applet should launch fine.

The restart step should not be necessary and is what so many customers are complaining about, especially when they compare to IE which does not require this extra step.

Comment 1

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

How recently did this regress?  See 367816; I didn't receive a response, and it was fixed for me then based on the testcase I was provided, so I went ahead and verified it.

Comment 2

[danielle.pham]

I don't think this is the same as 367816.
387616 was about the JavaScript refresh() itself was broken, and that calling to refresh() to update the mimeTypes[] array within script was not working before.
387616 was indeed fixed.

This problem is about Firefox browser not flushing the plugins table prior to search for Java plugin to serve the Java-required contents that the browser renders.
The steps to produce the problem is as already provided and is different from the testcase provided for 367816.

Comment 3

[danielle.pham]

Change severity to major because we have so many customers complain about this.

Comment 4

[danielle.pham]

btw, I don't think this bug is a regression.
However, it's a poor behavior affecting major plugin vendors.
Customers continuously complain about the restart requirement when installing Java Plugin or Flash plugin on FF, especially when this restart requirement is not necessary for IE.

Comment 5

[Johnny Stenback (:jst)]

We won't block the release on this, and it's unlikely that *I* will have any time to work on this before the release.

Having said that, if someone comes up with a patch for this we'd likely accept it, assuming it's a low impact fix that's unlikely to cause problems. Danielle, if you have time or people at Sun that might have time, I'd be glad to help out to come up with a fix for this, but someone other than me needs to own this.

Comment 6

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Scanning for plugins is expensive, and so we're not going to speculatively do it more often.