460917 - New plugins only recognized after restarting Firefox

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

Description

[Reed Loden [:reed] (use needinfo?)]

Created attachment 344024 [details] [diff] [review]
patch - v1

The gecko 1.9 plugin host doesn't scan plugin directories automatically for reviously not available mime-types and extensions anymore. This fix assures that the browser receives a NewPluginInstalled through the tabbrowser.selectedBrowser by registering a special listener before starting the plugin installer wizard. After plugins are properly installed we remove that listener again. 

Patch from Ubuntu bzr repo.

Not sure if Mossop or gavin should review this...

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Comment on attachment 344024 [details] [diff] [review]
patch - v1

Not really me, however it looks reasonable as is. It would be interesting to look at why the pluginhost isn't automatically rescanning the plugins when the unknown mimetype is re-encountered. The reloadPlugins cal shouldn't realy be necessary I think.

Comment 2

[Alexander Sack]

Its been a while when i made that patch. I claim to remember that this was done intentional to prevent useless directory rescans after the first time a plugin wasn't found.

Comment 3

[Alexander Sack]

Created attachment 350845 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v2

patch without the function rename.

Comment 4

[Alexander Sack]

Comment on attachment 350845 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v2

moving review to Mossop as he commented initially.

Comment 5

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Comment on attachment 350845 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v2

You have multiple references to |tabbrowser| here and as far as I'm aware there is no such variable defined in browser.js. Can you think of a way that we might be able to automate a test for this?

Comment 6

[Alexander Sack]

yeah sorry. Thats a merge bug as this originates on 1.9.0 branch ... I should have looked more carefully.

on 1.9 there is:

http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/browser/base/content/browser.js#5845
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/browser/base/content/browser.js#5976

I will look into it and resubmit. not sure yet how to write a test.

Comment 7

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Bug 836415 has now removed the Plugin Finder Service (PFS) from Firefox. As a result, I'm closing all the remaining PFS bugs.

If you're getting this bugmail for an ancient PFS bug, the basic summary of the world today is:

* NPAPI plugins are a dying technology
* PFS was already restricted to assisting with only the 4 most common plugins
* Sites commonly provide their own UI for install a required plugin
* Mozilla is generally focusing on  improving the web platform so that proprietary plugins are not required.

(Note that "plugins" are a completely separate from "browser extensions", such at those found on addons.mozilla.org. The latter are not going anywhere, and are not impacted by the removal of PFS.)