483713 - cannot install any extensions manually or via add-on manager

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Jeremy Electronic]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021906 Firefox/3.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021906 Firefox/3.0.7

Attempting to install any addons (tried WASP, and Firebug thus far) via the Add-On Manager generates error 'Firefox could not install the file at ...  because: Download error -228'.  After manually downloading the .xpi package, the Add-On manager silently fails to install, i.e. there are no errors reported, and the extension is not shown in the Install tab.  This happens when connected to any network I'm on (work, home, many, many coffee shops).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Use the add-on manager to attempt download of an extensions
2.Click Install when prompted
3.Manually download the package
4.Open the file via drag-and drop, via the File menu, or via Finder (open file with Firefox).
Actual Results:  
Firefox could not install the file at ...  because: Download error -228 OR the Add-on Manager shows an empty Install tab

Expected Results:  
I should hope that my extension would be installed.  : )

I've attempted many things to remedy, including wiping Firefox from my system (the .plist, profile folder, and application), re-downloading, and disabling all Plugins (Default, Java Embedding, Quicktime, and Shockwave Flash), yet still receive the same -228 error when downloading.

I tried installing Firefox 2, and the issue remains the same (-228 error, blank Add-ons tab).

The extensions folder has remained empty throughout all my troubleshooting.

I've also $'chmod -R 777'd the permissions on my profile folder in a desperate hope that this is a cache permission issue.

Reinstalling the OS isn't an option (we develop using a complex environment locally, Apache+Tomcat+MySQL+Struts among many others... one week reconfiguration minimum, even for my much more skilled coworkers).

I am willing to try anything to fix.   Tonight I will find out how to manually deploy extensions and append my results.

Comment 1

[Jeremy Electronic]

I've also tried removing the extensions.cache, extensions.rdf, and extensions
folder, followed by loading the app to no avail.

Comment 2

[Jeremy Electronic]

Also, no errors shown in the error console.

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Unable+to+install+add-ons

Comment 4

[Jeremy Electronic]

(In reply to comment #3)
> http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Unable+to+install+add-ons

xpinstall.enabled == true, browser.cache.disk.enable == true, browser.cache.disk.capacity == 200000, javascript.enabled == true, 3rd party cookies accepted (though this doesn't matter so much because it fails for locally downloaded .xpi files)

Comment 5

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Did you tried an additional test profile ?

Comment 6

[Jeremy Electronic]

Hi, I've attempted to create a new profile using both the normal ~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/... as the profile directory, and tried creating another using a non-standard profile root.

However, I was just able to add extensions successfully within a new system account (for that user).  Curious!  Continuing to investigate...

Comment 7

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Can you still reproduce this? If so can you see if there is an extensions.log file in your profile folder and attach it to this bug report.

Comment 8

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Can't evaluate this further without more information.

Comment 9

[Jeremy Electronic]

Sorry for the delayed update... there isn't an extensions.log in the profile folder (or anywhere else that I can find) unfortunately, and the console doesn't show any errors either.  

My workaround was to create a new system user and copy over the unpacked extensions and extensions.ini entries manually.  

I'll chalk it up to my environment... okay to resolve incomplete/nofix.