578099 - Ask.com Toolbar 3.8 error with Firefox 4 or 5 (what happened:TypeError: Components.classes['@mozilla.org/extensions/manager;1'] is undefined)

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Extension Compatibility, defect)

Description

[Ujjwal]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:2.0b1) Gecko/20100630 AskTbARS/3.8.0.12304 Firefox/4.0b1 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:2.0b1) Gecko/20100630 AskTbARS/3.8.0.12304 Firefox/4.0b1 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Having 2 Issues during starting firefox,
1) I am getting error when opening Firefox. Error looks like it had occurred during installation. I have NOT uninstalled or removed previous version of Firefox (3.6) before installing FF 4.0. 

2)After has opened, home page (google) will not show up, refresh the page to bring the page. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Do not uninstall or remove FF older version. ( In this case it is 3.6)
2.Install FF4.0, Standard install ( Not custom) 
3.When installation is complete, open FF. 
4.It will have an java script error, click OK
5.Home page (google) will not show up, refresh the page to bring the page. 
Actual Results:  
1) Error
2) No home page(its blank)

Expected Results:  
1) No error.
2) It open google.com as default home page.

Comment 1

[Ujjwal]

Attachment: starting error

Refer attachment for issue 1.

Comment 2

[Cork]

Are you using extensions.checkCompatibility.4.0b, "Add-on Compatibility Reporter" or any thing else that disables the compatibility check?

Comment 3

[Ujjwal]

No, Nothing of that sort. In fact Not using much of the Add-ons/plug-ins. The Add-ons/plugs-ins I am using are, Selenium, Firebug, MS.Net assistant. 1.2.1, TVU webplayer and other default with Firefox, as Feedback 1.0 from firefox,etc.

Not other external add-ons/plug-in has been installed.  

Also, particularly extensions.checkCompatibility.4.0b is not is not is use.

One more update to bug is,
When opening any popup, it will have same error again. 
e.g. pop up opening images for laptops at dell.com

Comment 4

[Cork]

Could you try disable your extensions and see if the message goes away; if it does, try enable them one by one until you find the one causing it.

Comment 5

[Ujjwal]

All right, found the bad guy. 
Extension from ask.com, the ask toolbar is causing the problem. Disabling that particular extension will solve the problem. 

Thanks for your prompt help.

Can I hope that issue with ask toolbar compatibility will be solved ? Just wondering, I dont use it anyways.

Comment 6

[Cork]

The bug is that the ask.com toolbar extension is listed without any min or max version for compatiblity. It needs to be updated to support firefox 4.0.

Comment 10

[Dave Garrett]

Someone needs to contact the developers of this addon and tell them to fix the compatibility listing and the compatibility itself.

Comment 11

[Dave Garrett]

Note by the way that all the users who are reporting this problem also have some form of "AskTb" in their user agents which makes them easy to identify to dupe.

Comment 12

[Dave Garrett]

I just downloaded the toolbar into a VM to test, and apparently the current version 3.6.2.119 claims it's compatible with Firefox 2.0 - 5.* (yes, five). A little tip for Ask.com: stupid crap like that is guaranteed to break things.

Though, that version didn't muck up the UA like these others so I guess it's different. If I knew exactly what versions were at fault here I might file a blocklist request for under Firefox 4+.

Comment 20

[Dave Garrett]

A little warning in reference to my comment 11: that trick is going away.

For Firefox 4 beta 5, user agent string pollution will be banned (bug 581008). This is a good thing in general, as narcissistic addons won't be able to amend the UA for no good reason as doing so hurts privacy and tends to break things. This does however mean than bugs to dupe to here won't have some form of "AskTb" easily visible in their UA strings anymore. The "what happened:" prefix to the error message seems to be unique (enough) to the Ask Toolbar (see bug 576505) so the error message should be sufficient to know it's probably this:

what happened:TypeError: Components.classes['@mozilla.org/extensions/manager;1'] is undefined

Comment 21

[Dave Garrett]

For reference, I filed bug 592258 to request blocklisting this extension under Firefox 4+. (and probably posted entirely too much info, though with the difficulty in getting some things blocklisted I felt the need to overdo...) Please avoid posting there unless you have something very specific to add on the blocklisting topic, not just a "yes please". Please post here if there's new info on dealing with this error/problem itself.

Comment 26

[anandarony]

(In reply to comment #5)
> All right, found the bad guy. 
> Extension from ask.com, the ask toolbar is causing the problem. Disabling
> that particular extension will solve the problem. 
> 
> Thanks for your prompt help.
> 
> Can I hope that issue with ask toolbar compatibility will be solved ? Just
> wondering, I dont use it anyways.

Ujjwal you are right; These error occurred for Ask.com Toolbar; Uninstall the ask.com toolbar. and I am released from the problem :)

Comment 27

[Alex Vincent [:WeirdAl]]

Please, please contact me about this.  I work on the Ask.com toolbar, and I want to make sure we know about any issues in the field with it.

Comment 28

[Dave Garrett]

(In reply to Alex Vincent [:WeirdAl] from comment #27)
> Please, please contact me about this.  I work on the Ask.com toolbar, and I
> want to make sure we know about any issues in the field with it.

Ask.com was contacted and newer versions of the toolbar were reportedly released with a fix. (see dependent bug 592258 for more information)

To anyone else coming here who gets this problem:
The older versions of the Ask.com toolbar that cause this issue did so because they falsely claimed support for up to Firefox 5.* long before Firefox 4 even came out, and it didn't actually support either. The two affected versions, Firefox 4.0.x & 5.0.x, are now old and no longer supported in the current rapid release cycle so all users should update to current Firefox 6.0.1 or later which will be able to disable this broken addon as incompatible from the start. Anyone who did use this toolbar that still wants it can install a current version that should not have this issue.