58348 - Helper Applications listing is blank

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 50914

(SeaMonkey :: Preferences, defect, P3)

Description

[David Perry]

Saw a similar bug listed for Linux (bug 50914), but no mention of other OSes
(specifically Win95/98). I'm running (from Help|About):Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U;
Win98; en-US; m18) Gecko/20001027 .

Expected behaviour:  Helper Applications dialog lists all MIME file types,
allowing user to click on one and edit/delete it.

Actual behavour: Helper Applications dialog is blank.

Note: the helpers *are* being properly added using "New Type..." button, they
just aren't being shown.  Here's how I discovered this:

From the Preferences/Helper Applications dialog, I pressed the "New Type..."
button, and filled the resulting "New Type" dialog with the following:
Description: Compressed file
File extension: zip lha lzh
MIME type: application/zip
Application to use: "C:\Program Files\Norton Antivirus\Navw32.exe" /download

When I originally tried this, pressing the "OK" button had no apparent effect --
not even the dialog was closed.  Pressing it again (and every time I try to
"re-add" this type) gives a new dialog "Helper Application Exists" with the text
"A helper already exists for the MIME type 'application/zip'. Do you want to
replace it?"  Selecting "OK" dismisses that dialog, but the "New Type" dialog
remains open.  I can only dismiss that dialog with the "Cancel" or "X" (close)
buttons.

But when I click on a link with that MIME type, it pops up a dialog asking
whether I would like to open the file using the application I specified, or save
it to disk.  (Aside: the "Always ask me before opening or saving files of this
type" is disabled. Separate bug/feature/not yet implemented?)

Sample link: http://dark.x.dtu.dk/~grumbel/pingus/pingus-0.4.0-binary-win32.zip
(Warning: it's a big file. It's the only one I could find in a pinch that was
application/zip .)

Comment 1

[Doron Rosenberg (IBM)]

--> preferences, perhaps backend? seeing as well on new trunk builds

Comment 2

[Jeff Hornsberger]

This also happens in Linux. In fact I've never seen the Helper Applications
preferences work any other way so I had always assumed they didn't work yet! The
behaviour is exactly the same as what was described on Win 98.

Comment 3

[David Perry]

I created a new user profile, and now the listing of helper applications shows,
and adding new apps works as expected.  Are user profiles incompatible between
builds, or is something bigger going on?

Comment 4

[shrirang khanzode]

If you have a very old profile, you might see this. Read comments in bug 
50914.Thx!

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 50914 ***

Comment 5

[Azrael AOD]

Verifying as a duplicate of 50914 
'Helper application panel listing is blank, cannot add mime type when using old 
profile'