478284 - Opening a URL from outside FF doesn't work if an Add-on update is available

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Zandr Milewski [:zandr]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011912 Firefox/3.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011912 Firefox/3.0.6

If I launch Firefox by clicking a URL in another app, say Thunderbird, and there's an update for one of my addons, then the URL I clicked is never opened.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Click a link in another app.
2.Deal with an add-on update (problem occurs either way)
3.
Actual Results:  
The previous session is restored, but the new URL is not opened.

Expected Results:  
The new URL should open in a new tab.

Comment 1

[Zandr Milewski [:zandr]]

OK, in describing this to joduinn, I think more explanation might be needed. This bug changes the behavior of Firefox depending on whether an outside developer has submitted a new version to addons.mozilla.org.

Put another way, imagine a hypothetical addon where the version number is a timestamp, updated continuously (a useful test fixture, IMO). Installing this plugin would effectively disable open URL events at launch.

This annoys me with some frequency...I'm sort of surprised that it hasn't generated any comment, or for that matter, someone with better search-fu than I finding the dupe that must exist. :)

Comment 2

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

I think this is a symptom of the problem discussed at http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform/browse_thread/thread/b2c3a0e7c478ab2a/209d892a033d943d .

The add-on update presumably just uses nsIAppStartup.quit(eRestart) to restart after applying the addon update, and that code doesn't currently support restoring command line parameters. See also 310378.

Comment 3

[Zandr Milewski [:zandr]]

You don't have to apply the update for the problem to occur. Just getting the offer of an update is enough for the new URL to be lost.

Comment 5

[Zandr Milewski [:zandr]]

Don't understand the dependency on bug 501588 (especially since it was promptly WONTFIXed) Moving add-on updates around is beside the point. Throwing away user input is a sin, and should be avoided if at all possible.

NB: We also throw it away when doing an update on startup, I think for the reasons Gavin mentioned in comment #2. This means if you're on the nightly channel, opening URLs from outside the browser is mostly broken if the browser isn't already running.

Comment 6

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

Just verified that opening an url with an app update pending to be applied does open the url though the OS does display an error due to our DDE implementation. Also, the DDE implementation will be going away soon which will remove the error message.

Comment 7

[Andy McKay]

Due to a long period of inactivity on this bug (5.92 years), I am intending to close this bug within a month or so in accordance with: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/OldBugs Please remove [intent-to-close] from the whiteboard and comment on this bug if you would like to keep it open.