429516 - Updating Firefox should NOT remove existing search plugins

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 311626

(Firefox :: Installer, enhancement)

Description

[Phrawm50]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14

When updating an existing installation of Firefox, the update program should NOT remove existing search plugins.

As of Firefox 2.0.0.14, performing an update deletes the user's existing search plugins and overwrites them with a default set that includes businesses such as Amazon.com and eBay.

The user's custom search plugins should be preserved.  Better yet, the upgrade process should allow the user to choose which -- if any -- default search plugins will be reinstalled.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Use the Firefox installation program to upgrade an existing instance of Firefox.
2. Go the Search bar and examine the search engines.  The upgrade process has deleted the user's search engines and replaced them with the Firefox defaults.



Expected Results:  
Customized search engines should not be deleted, and defaults should not automatically be re-installed -- the user should be given the choice of not reinstalling search engines for business sites such as Amazon.com and eBay.

My default upgrade process now involves copying my Firefox Search Plugins directory to a save location, performing the upgrade, then replacing the upgraded Search Plugins directory with my customized collection of search plugins.

My customized search plugins do NOT include business sites such as Amazon.com and eBay...

Comment 1

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

The installer actually has deleted search plugins on install for quite some time. Not sure what the right answer is since this was added to the removed-files.in which tells the installer which files to remove and not directly to the installer.

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

The installer *should* remove and replace the searchplugins which come with the application. The user may install different searchplugins via the UI which are placed in the profile directory. The user may also choose to disable some of the default searchplugins.

Comment 3

[Phrawm50]

I would still suggest that an *update* (as differentiated from a new installation) should be more respectful of the user's customized search plugins.

For what it's worth, I've been using Firefox since the 1.x days, and so some time ago learned about the current behavior the hard way.  My suggestion for an enhancement is based on having become very tired of dealing with a destructive upgrade behavior that automatically and without warning deletes my search plugins then force-feeds me ones I've already removed.

As annoying as the current behavior is, deleting search plugins renders the use of the UI to manage or disable search plugins too little too late.

Finally, I must express my *extreme* disappointment at the cavalier marking of this enhancement request as "invalid" within minutes of its submission.  Inconvenient to those unwilling to consider the issue, perhaps, but not invalid...

Cheers & thanks,
R
SFO

Comment 4

[Benjamin Smedberg]

This decision has already been discussed at length in other bugs.

If you install your search plugins normally (e.g. into your user profile) they are not modified at all during upgrade. The only files Firefox modifies are the files that are part of the installation directory, and you should not normally add searchplugins to this directory.

INVALID, really.

Comment 5

[Lucas Malor (mail: c6kfnkn2uc AT snkmail DOT c0m)]

Well, this doesn't seems to me an invalid bug. It describes correctly a problem of a Mozilla product. Anyway this is a duplicate of a wontfixed bug.

Comment 6

[Carlos Alén Silva]

(In reply to comment #4)
> This decision has already been discussed at length in other bugs.
> 
> If you install your search plugins normally (e.g. into your user profile) they
> are not modified at all during upgrade. The only files Firefox modifies are the
> files that are part of the installation directory, and you should not normally
> add searchplugins to this directory.
> 
> INVALID, really.

Hello.

I'd experienced this same bug twice after updating Firefox. I've noticed that this bug and all its duplicates are always marked 'invalid'/'won' t fix'/'works for me'. I can understand the 'won't fix' but I don't agree with the 'invalid' and the 'works for me'.

When the user installs search plugins from a web site, s/he isn't informed whether they'll be stored in the profile folder or in the application folder.

The thing is that Firefox doesn't modify the search plugins in the user profile after an update but this doesn't help much --After updating, Firefox overwrites the search plugins in the application folder with the default ones and uses them instead of the plugins in the profile folder.

Firefox's behavior when updating doesn't seem appropriate --It's an update, not a rollback to default values or a full new installation.

Besides, if "The installer *should* remove and replace the searchplugins which come with the application", Why shouldn't the installer also remove and replace themes, extensions, toolbars, buttons...?

Comment 7

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

Just a point of fact... the installer does remove / replace themes, extensions, toolbars, buttons, etc. that were installed by the installer into the application directory. As for search plugins... perhaps the module owner could create a new global location that isn't affected by the installer or software update.

Comment 8

[Carlos Alén Silva]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Just a point of fact... the installer does remove / replace themes, extensions,
> toolbars, buttons, etc. that were installed by the installer into the
> application directory. As for search plugins... perhaps the module owner could
> create a new global location that isn't affected by the installer or software
> update.

I think I didn't make myself clear. I was talking about the installer when updating. Call it 'updater' if you want. Is the installer supposed to remove toolbars, themes, etc when updating?

When updating Firefox, the installer/updater didn't remove any of my previous toolbars, buttons or plugins whenever I updated Firefox (2.0 to 2.X, 3.0 to 3.01, 3.01 to 3.03) but it did remove / mess around with the searchplugins.

In lay terms: After updating Firefox, themes, buttons, bookmarks, toolbars, --and every setting I can recall now-- remain the same (if compatible with the new Firefox version/build), but search plugins are all reverted to default. 

I think this is inconsistent. Afther updating, toolbars installed by the user are kept; themes installed by the user are kept; extensions installed by the user are kept; search plugins installed by the user are not kept. For instance, the Ask toolbar is kept, but its search plugin counterpart is not.

If it's not possible to fix this in Firefox's code, is it at least possible to give some guidelines to searchplugins developers in order to avoid this problem?

Comment 9

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

You're confusing things here, sorry.

We decided to change some plugins we ship by default from 2 to 3, and removed those from 2. This isn't totally perfect, but we decided it was OK.

This does not affect plugins installed by the user, but only plugins we ship and install by default.

There might be ways to improve this process, but that discussion is not really subject of this bug, nor is the discussion about this best held in a closed bug. That should probably happen in the mozilla.dev.apps.firefox newsgroup.

Comment 10

[Carlos Alén Silva]

Let's see: 

I mentioned my updates from 2.0 to 2.x and 3.0 to 3.x just as examples. You can completely forget about that. I'm not referring about default search plugins overwritten with new ones when updating from 2.x to 3.x, nor about what default plugins are included in each version of Firefox. I'm talking about user-installed search plugins not working after updating Firefox. I'm talking about Firefox storing search plugins by default in 2 separate places, overwriting one of these places when updating, defaulting to it and thus practically removing any user-installed plugins from the GUI.

Furthermore, if the user tries to reinstall these search plugins again from their respective web sites, s/he'll receive an error mesage stating "you can't install this plugin because there's already one with the same name". Yes, there's a plugin with the same name in the profile folder. But it seems that Firefox needs the same file in the application folder for the search plugin to work. Try it with any of the Word Reference search plugins, for instance.

As I see it, the problem is that these search plugins are installed/stored both in the application folder and the profile folder by default, but Firefox uses/needs the files in the application folder only. When updating, Firefox overwrites all the search plugins in the application folder and uses them, thus practically rendering unusable any search plugins added by the user. The user-added plugins are stored safely in the profile folder as well, but Firefox seems to need the search plugins in the application folder. They won't be usable until the user manually copies the files from the profile folder to the application folder.

The problem is not the overwriting of the files per se, the problem is that the search plugins just don't work. If the search plugins would work, nobody would care about what files Firefox overwrites in its application folder. In other words: The complain is about user-installed plugins not working after updating Firefox, not about the default search plugins included with Firefox nor about Firefox deleting files in its application folder.

Comment 11

[Phrawm50]

when I first installed Firefox 1.0, almost three years ago, I immediately deleted the unwanted Amazon.com and eBray search plugins.

Why, three years later, do I still need to repeat that deletion every time I do a routine "security" upgrade of Firefox?

If the installation program can't be configured to respect an existing search plugin configuration, maybe the script that determines that a newly upgraded version of Firefox is being run for the first time could be.

Or if you prefer, if the same amount of energy had been applied to solving the problem as has been applied to justifying the original omission in the Firefox upgrade process, the problem would have been solved long ago...

Comment 12

[Benjamin Smedberg]

The solution is simple. Do your search engine management through the "Manage Search Engines" dialog, instead of futzing with Firefox's installation directory. Firefox remembers your preferences if you use the correct UI, just as it does for extensions, themes, and everything else.

Comment 13

[Carlos Alén Silva]

(In reply to comment #12)
> The solution is simple. Do your search engine management through the "Manage
> Search Engines" dialog, instead of futzing with Firefox's installation
> directory. Firefox remembers your preferences if you use the correct UI, just
> as it does for extensions, themes, and everything else.

What are you referring with 'the correct UI'?

I think it's totally the opposite: Firefox futzes it's own installation directory when updating; Firefox doesn't remember user-added search plugins but it does remember extensions, themes, etc.; "Manage Search Engines" dialog is useless after updating because search plugin files not present in the application directory are not listed there, then some users solve the problem by manually copy-pasting search plugin files from the profile directory to the application directory and then using the "Manage Search Engines" dialog.

Why are search plugins so discriminated against?