509916 - Cannot submit language packs for Thunderbird as no categories are available

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Developer Pages, defect)

Description

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.1) Gecko/20090715 Firefox/3.5.1
Build Identifier: 

Impossible to submit a new langpack for TB.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Submit a valid new langpack extension (type 8)
2. See: No Categories available for this add-on type and application.
3. Try to submit to Sandbox.
Actual Results:  
See: Your add-on is currently Incomplete. This means your add-on is not showing up on any portion of the site or update check service. You may come to this page to complete your add-on after it meets the criteria below for completion and transfer to the Sandbox. 

Expected Results:  
2. Should have categories, including Localizations, or whatever it's called.
Thus, should be able to submit to Sandbox.

Comment 1

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

I believe this bug should receive STAT treatment, and be resolved ASAP, and i hope somebody could fix the broken conditional for TB, and add type 8 to it. FYI: based on earlier testing, if the same extension were to be uploaded w/ type 3, AMO then does list Categories to be selected, but once the extension is  installed it's not listed in Add-ons window. It's weird that invalid extension type of 3 gets Categories listed, but valid one of 8 doesn't.

If this isn't getting fixed right away, please update the status for extension 13653 to In Sandbox, so that it's publicly available. I've spent many hours on it, and i'm really frustrated that it currently can't even be accessed and downloaded.

P.S. 
Also, this bug has made it me submit 3 extensions before 13653, while i was playing w/ extension types and verifying who's to blame. Therefore, while it is not a pre-requisite for resolving this bug, please delete the following extensions that are a by-product of this bug:
13647, 13648, 13651.
All of them are marked as Inactive in extension name, and their status is Inactive as well. So they won't cause any problems, but at some point i'd like to stop seeing them in developer dashboard.

Thanks.

Comment 2

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

For me personally there are 2 important goals here:
1. to have the add-on listed in its url (this i can test myself):
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/13653/
2. to have the add-on status In Sandbox, and version status Complete.

These goals can be achieved w/ a work-around for this bug, rather than after fixing it, if its fixing is going to take more than a few minutes or hours.

Comment 3

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

FYI:

The View Listing links on developer dashboard keep changing from:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13653/
to
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/13653/
and back.
First it was the former, then the latter, and now the former again. I don't know, but it could be that a description update or something like that flips the View Listing links from TB to FX, although i've not found a definite pattern. It could also be due to load balancing, and distributed data propagation. It should of course be the latter, and hopefully it will be when all is said and done.

Comment 4

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

RJ: mind taking a look?  When I try uploading his language pack, I get:

"The extension does not match the type of the add-on.", but it's type=8, which should be correct.  Thanks!

Comment 5

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

Here is the url of the latest uploaded extension, which i hope will be the last one (type 8; No Categories listed, and bogus validation error):
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/downloads/file/61673/qirimtatarca_til_paketi-3.0b3-tb.xpi
Extension landing page (inaccessible due to this bug, has not been accessible at all due to type 8 bug, and won't be until this is fixed (not sure if it will require promoting extension to Sandbox and Nominating as well or not; that can't be done now due to Incomplete status caused by No Categories)):
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/13653

Here is the url of a the same previously uploaded extension (the only difference is that it was type 3: had Categories listed, and passed validation just fine), which i marked Inactive because after installing, type 3 isn't shown in Add-ons window at all:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/downloads/file/61666/qirimtatarca_til_paketi-3.0b3-tb.xpi
Extension landing page (inaccessible only due to me having made it Inactive, was accessible just fine when Active):
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/13648/

Comment 6

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

I have to say that in my book this is a critical bug that can't wait a week or two, and has to be fixed STAT/ASAP. But i do say that realizing that the criticality of the bug is apparently discounted by the perceived low importance of the locale being added: so even though this means the add-on won't be accessible until this bug is fixed, due to locale currently being small this appears to be something that can wait. I have really mixed feelings about it: my mind says that kind of discounting might make some sense considering the entire userbase, but at the same time i'm darn frustrated to see a huge amount of work hanging in the air inaccessible to anybody like that.

If at all possible, i implore you all to manually update the DB for 13653 with the "Language Support" Category (2nd in the list that was made available for 13648), so that this doesn't wait a week or two. I think it is quite reasonable to employ a work-around to avoid such an unreasonable delay in the add-on becoming accessible to users (just with In Sandbox status).

Comment 7

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

I added a General category for language packs and thunderbird and put your add-on in it.  You should be able to activate your add-on at this point.

For future reference, our schedule has nothing to do with your locale.  Until I logged into AMO just now I didn't even know what locale your language pack was for.  Inactivity* on a bug isn't meant to be spiteful or neglectful, it just means we're busy.  Posting additional comments to a bug won't necessarily speed up the process as it bumps it to the top of my box and I read from the bottom. :)

Anyway, ->fixed.

* One day is hardly inactivity, but for the sake of argument...

Comment 8

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

Just wanted to confirm, that now i indeed was able to make the add-on available for users to try:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/13653

Unless i bug you guys again, i think this bug is resolved.

P.S. There may need to be another far lower priority bug for the question "Which type and Category TB langpacks should go under?". As i mentioned, 13648 had extension (not url) type 3, and i was able to choose "Language Support" category for it, which was 2nd in the list. But for 13653 currently, i don't see that category: i only see the apparently newly added by Wil General category. Also, TB langpacks don't appear to be consistent in which category they use:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/browse/type:3
Some have none, which apparently was allowed sometimes back, some are with "type:1/cat:x" url, where x is 50, or 58, etc.
My add-on currently has the following category url on landing page: "type:5/cat:99".
This variability might be something worth mulling over with a lower priority over time. I'm not gonna spend any time on that now, but migth check on that down the road, and log a low-priority bug if deemed necessary. 
I definitely don't want to sound unappreciative. I highly appreciate Wil's and others' efforts in quickly taking care of this show-stopping for me issue.

Thank you very much.

Comment 9

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

Wil: did we make a long-term fix here, or just a bandaid?  Was the category addition just a SQL change?

Comment 10

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

I added a category via the admin control panel.  It's not a short term or SQL change.

Comment 11

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

(In reply to comment #10)
> I added a category via the admin control panel.  It's not a short term or SQL
> change.

Great, thanks!  Verified FIXED.

Comment 12

[Reşat SABIQ (Reshat)]

Hi,

Sorry for a late followup on this. Please let me know if you'd like me to log a separate bug instead...

(In reply to Reşat SABIQ (Reshat) from comment #1)
> P.S. 
> Also, this bug has made me submit 3 extensions before 13653, while i was
> playing w/ extension types and verifying who's to blame. Therefore, while it
> is not a pre-requisite for resolving this bug, please delete the following
> extensions that are a by-product of this bug:
> 13647, 13648, 13651.
> All of them are marked as Inactive in extension name, and their status is
> Inactive as well. So they won't cause any problems, but at some point i'd
> like to stop seeing them in developer dashboard.
I've been seeing the aforementioned inactive extension 13648 in my addon developer account, and while it doesn't affect anything, i think it's time to take it off the books: i'll have 1 less item to see in my account, and the in general the extension data would be cleaner... 

P.S. FYI: I had appended ": Inactive 2" to the name, mostly for my own benefit, but it might be worth knowing while processing this.

Thanks in advance.