585443 - install of not-newest version add-ons fails silently in Thunderbird if made compatible by maxVersion increase on AMO

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b4pre) Gecko/20100807 Mnenhy/0.8.3 Shredder/3.2a1pre

drag and drop of add-ons into add-ons manager for installing them doesn't work anymore, but it works in Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b4pre) Gecko/20100807 Minefield/4.0b4pre (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) - so maybe no Toolkit - Add-ons Manager bug.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b4pre) Gecko/20100807 Mnenhy/0.8.3
> Shredder/3.2a1pre
Aryx can you give us the regression window?

Comment 2

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Ok, I found the problem in Toolkit: On install, it doesn't check for new compatibility information. Firefox shows this as doorhanger from the locationbar which Thunderbird lacks and so silently rejects to install the add-on.

Example:
QuickFolders 1.9.1 https://addons.mozilla.org/de/thunderbird/addon/3254/versions/1.9.1
maxVersion file: Thunderbird 3.1b2
maxVersion AMO: Thunderbird 3.2b1pre

Reason:
AMO only returns the latest version on checking for updates/compatibility information.

Issue:
With multiple branches, add-on installation can fail for user which aren't on the latest stable branch if the latest add-on version isn't compatible with the used one.

Comment 3

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

Asked Mossop from the Add-ons Manager teamed and he confirmed that non-browser applications have to implement their own error reporting. (Quoting shaver: "[...] until we provide something")

Comment 5

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Notifications were fixed by Bug 571759 for 3.3a2.

Comment 6

[Jonathan Protzenko [:protz]]

This bug is back, I just compiled a fresh version of Thunderbird from trunk, and in the situation described above (installing an addon with maxVersion = 5.0 in the xpi, maxVersion = 8.0a1 on addons.mozilla.org) fails with:

Error: win is null
Source File: chrome://messenger/content/specialTabs.js
Line: 1065

Comment 7

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to Jonathan Protzenko [:protz] from comment #6)
> This bug is back, I just compiled a fresh version of Thunderbird from trunk,
> and in the situation described above (installing an addon with maxVersion =
> 5.0 in the xpi, maxVersion = 8.0a1 on addons.mozilla.org) fails with:
> 
> Error: win is null
> Source File: chrome://messenger/content/specialTabs.js
> Line: 1065

That's bug 677646, and normally we don't re-open old bugs that we know were fixed, but file new ones.