566762 - Let non-core providers determine whether a restart is needed on startup, via checkForChanges()

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[Blair McBride [:Unfocused] (UNAVAILABLE)]

Currently, only core providers (those hardcoded into the PROVIDERS array in AddonsManager.jsm) get the chance to determine whether a restart is needed on startup (via a call to provieder.checkForChanges). Ideally, non-core providers would be able to do this also. This would require loading them early enough in the startup sequence - presumably by adding a way for providers to (optionally) be XPCOM components that can be discovered and automatically loaded.

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Yeah I'm thinking of using the category manager as a way to register services and jsms that provide providers.

I think in general we should split providers into those that need to be loaded at startup and those that only need to be loaded later.

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

I still have semi-solid plans related to e10s which would allow us to completely avoid restarting: what's the motivation for exposing the undesirable restart-required behavior to non-core code?

Comment 3

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I still have semi-solid plans related to e10s which would allow us to
> completely avoid restarting: what's the motivation for exposing the undesirable
> restart-required behavior to non-core code?

Probably none if we can stop restarts altogether. Do you have notes anywhere on your plans?

Comment 4

[Andrew Swan [:aswan]]

non-core providers is not something that is supported these days