644007 - Sync does not work at all

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Cloud Services :: General, defect)

Description

[Marcin Wisnicki]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0

I have upgraded Firefox from 3.6 to 4.0 and removed Sync extension since it is now part of Firefox (why is it still available separately?).

Now it seems it does absolutely nothing.

1. There is nothing in the log and it is not recreated after i have deleted it.
2. Setting services.sync.log.appender.debugLog.enabled=true does not help
3. Disconnecting network cable and clicking "sync now" in firefox button does nothing, there is no error indicator.

Also a related question to devs: I know you will never agree with restoring permanent status indicator for sync because it makes too much sense, but is it possible to write it as an extension ? I mean is there some API to get notifications about sync status ?

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> I have upgraded Firefox from 3.6 to 4.0 and removed Sync extension since it is
> now part of Firefox (why is it still available separately?).

It's still available separately for all those Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 users out there. Firefox 4.0 was only released today.

> Now it seems it does absolutely nothing.
> 
> 1. There is nothing in the log and it is not recreated after i have deleted it.
> 2. Setting services.sync.log.appender.debugLog.enabled=true does not help

Did you restart? That pref only activates logging on browser startup.

> 3. Disconnecting network cable and clicking "sync now" in firefox button does
> nothing, there is no error indicator.

That's intended. Network errors are ignored until a certain threshold is met.

> Also a related question to devs: I know you will never agree with restoring
> permanent status indicator for sync because it makes too much sense, but is it
> possible to write it as an extension ?

Sure. http://github.com/philikon/SyncBling

Comment 2

[Marcin Wisnicki]

(In reply to comment #1)
> It's still available separately for all those Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 users out
> there. Firefox 4.0 was only released today.

I mean why it is allowed to install on Firefox 4.0. Is there any reason to install it on 4.0 ? If not then it just creates confusion.

> 
> > Now it seems it does absolutely nothing.
> > 
> > 1. There is nothing in the log and it is not recreated after i have deleted it.
> > 2. Setting services.sync.log.appender.debugLog.enabled=true does not help
> 
> Did you restart? That pref only activates logging on browser startup.
> 

Ahh... indeed it does.

> > 3. Disconnecting network cable and clicking "sync now" in firefox button does
> > nothing, there is no error indicator.
> 
> That's intended. Network errors are ignored until a certain threshold is met.
> 

That's rather unfortunate decision (as this bug report proves).

> > Also a related question to devs: I know you will never agree with restoring
> > permanent status indicator for sync because it makes too much sense, but is it
> > possible to write it as an extension ?
> 
> Sure. http://github.com/philikon/SyncBling

That's great. It doesn't really work with latest FF and doesn't run with latest jetpack-sdk but I've managed to hack it so it shows something that looks like quarter of a button in status bar :)

However in the process I've discovered that there is a standard Sync button that can be dragged to toolbar.
It shows last sync in tooltip and a very subtle* animation during synchronization which is nearly perfect.
All that is missing is making it subtly red when sync fails and adding failure reason to the tooltip.

A context menu with "Sync now", "Suspend" (temporarily disable syncing) and "View log" would be even more fantastic.

[*] that animation is barely noticeable on good-quality desktop LCD screen, actually on my laptop which has somewhat **** lcd it's practically not visible. Please consider making it more visible.

Comment 3

[Marcin Wisnicki]

Great it can even be dragged to status bar where it belongs!

However it still uses that barely visible blue highlight animation. I think that when it is docked in status bar an animation like before (rotation) would be more appropriate.

Comment 4

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > It's still available separately for all those Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 users out
> > there. Firefox 4.0 was only released today.
> 
> I mean why it is allowed to install on Firefox 4.0. Is there any reason to
> install it on 4.0 ? If not then it just creates confusion.

The idea is that users upgrading from 3.6 to 4.0 will not see the Sync add-on being disabled and think that we haven't kept up (not realizing that Sync is not built in). If you look at the AMO reviews, there are quite a few that criticized the lack of 4.0 compatibility.

The add-on recognizes when it's installed on 4.0 and disables itself.

> > > Also a related question to devs: I know you will never agree with restoring
> > > permanent status indicator for sync because it makes too much sense, but is it
> > > possible to write it as an extension ?
> > 
> > Sure. http://github.com/philikon/SyncBling
> 
> That's great. It doesn't really work with latest FF and doesn't run with latest
> jetpack-sdk but I've managed to hack it so it shows something that looks like
> quarter of a button in status bar :)

Feel free to send me a GitHub pull request :)

Comment 5

[Marcin Wisnicki]

(In reply to comment #4)
> The add-on recognizes when it's installed on 4.0 and disables itself.

Maybe add this information to extension description at addons.mozilla.org to make it clear.

> > That's great. It doesn't really work with latest FF and doesn't run with latest
> > jetpack-sdk but I've managed to hack it so it shows something that looks like
> > quarter of a button in status bar :)
> 
> Feel free to send me a GitHub pull request :)

It's not really usable and probably does not work.

Besides Sync button is the way to go, it just needs minimal tweaks as requested above.

Comment 6

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

Marcin, does Sync now work for you? If not, please post the logs.

Comment 7

[Marcin Wisnicki]

Yes it works, the problem is that if it does not work there is no indication

Comment 8

[Philipp von Weitershausen [:philikon]]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Yes it works, the problem is that if it does not work there is no indication

Yes there is. If there's an actual error or if Sync fails due to network errors for five consecutive times, you *will* see an error bar.