532666 - Installing moonlight plugin corrupts pluginreg.dat

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Roderick Johnstone]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091105 Fedora/3.5.5-1.fc12 Firefox/3.5.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091105 Fedora/3.5.5-1.fc12 Firefox/3.5.5

Installing and enabling the mono moonlight plugin 2.0 beta 2 (1.99.9) causes the gecko-mediaplayer plugin to be lost.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install gecko mediaplayer and gnome-mplayer
2. type about plugins
3. Install mono moonlight extension
4. type about plugins
Actual Results:  
After installing moonlight extension the gecko mediaplayer plugins are not listed.

Expected Results:  
gecko-mediaplayer and silverlight/moonlight plugins coexist and are listed together.

Subsequently disabling the moonlight plugin doesnt restore the gecko mediaplayer. 
about:plugins shows:
Silverlight Plug-In
    File name: gecko-mediaplayer-dvx.so
    3.0.40624.0

Removing pluginreg.dat restores the gecko-mediaplayer plugins.

See also novell bugs:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=538065
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=544214

Comment 1

[Rolf Bjarne Kvinge]

This is one of the most frequently reported issues with for Moonlight, here are more links:

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=565866
http://code.google.com/p/gecko-mediaplayer/issues/detail?id=31
http://lists.ximian.com/pipermail/moonlight-list/2009-October/000659.html

The problem is that pluginreg.dat gets corrupted somehow, I've seen it myself once, and the pluginreg.dat was completely messed up (I didn't keep a copy, so I can't attach it). One of our users however has uploaded the pluginreg.dat before and after deleting it, links in this bug: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=544214

Apparently this also happens with other plugins, not only gecko-mediaplayer (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=544214 talks about vlc (mozilla-plugin-vlc) and totem (totem-mozilla))

Comment 2

[Kees Bakker]

Shouldn't we make a new bugreport (and point this one to it), since this one suggests a relation with gecko-mediaplayer. While in fact (if you ask me anyway) the bug is: "installing moonlight plugin corrupts pluginreg.dat".

Comment 3

[Rolf Bjarne Kvinge]

I'm pretty sure that the issue is the same bug in all cases, so IMHO the bug should be updated to reflect the broader scope of the bug, instead of opening another bugreport.

Comment 4

[Kees Bakker]

But I'm afraid most people will just look at the bugtitle. "Oh it's about gecko-mediaplayer, that's not what I have, I'm not interested."

This bug seems to have been identified in july already and until now nobody seems to understand where the problem lies. It doesn't help to mention gecko-mediaplayer, vlc or totem in the bugreport because now everyone will think it's somebody else's problem.

Comment 5

[Roderick Johnstone]

Its my bug report. Please feel free to change the title to anything you feel is more useful, or tell me what to change it to.

Comment 6

[Kees Bakker]

I'm not sure that you can modify the title, can you? But if you can, how about changing it to: "installing moonlight plugin corrupts pluginreg.dat"

Comment 7

[Kees Bakker]

Rolf, can you elaborate on why you think it is a Firefox bug and not a problem caused by installing the moonlight plugin (as you wrote in the novell bugzilla 544214 report)?
The moonlight plugin itself seems to work OK once the pluginreg.dat corruption has been undone.

Comment 8

[Rolf Bjarne Kvinge]

Kees, I don't rule out that Moonlight is doing something strange (after all, it is the common denominator in all bugs), issue still remains that installing Moonlight (from an xpi built using your tools) shouldn't be able to corrupt pluginreg.dat in the first place. Have in mind that it's firefox doing the install of the xpi plugin, Moonlight itself isn't executing any code.

Comment 9

[Zimmer]

I can confirm this problem (Linux Slackware 13 32 bit + Firefox 3.5.x + Moonlight 2).

In my case, if I install Moonlight 2, GeckoMediaplayer plugin and OpenOffice plugin disappear and pluginreg.dat gets corrupted; this does not happen with Moonlight 1.x and Firefox 3.5.x.

No problems with Seamonkey 2.x + Moonlight 2 + GeckoMediaplayer plugin + OpenOffice plugin (and, as you know, the new Seamonkey 2 is based on the same core as Firefox 3.5.x).

I have also tried to copy pluginreg.dat from Seamonkey 2 to Firefox 3.5 (both share the same plugins) but, after I have started Firefox, pluginreg.dat gets corrupted again.

Comment 10

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 3.6.13 or later in safe mode? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

You can also try to reproduce in Firefox 4 Beta 8 or later, there are many improvements in the new version, http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Comment 11

[Roderick Johnstone]

This issue is fixed with current Firefox 3.6.13 and Moonlight 2.3.

Closing as fixed.