680309 - Add update channel to about:support

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1109757

(Toolkit :: General, defect)

Description

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

In <http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.usability/msg/42a70d0e3a0490ea>, Asa said "we should add the channel to the Troubleshooting page and I think
that's already a known bug. The Troubleshooting page should give the
Name, the Channel, the Version, etc."

I haven't been able to find the bug for it, so I'm filing this.

Comment 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

Thanks, Chris. I swear I saw this bug before but I also cannot find it. Thanks for filing a new one.

Comment 2

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

Attachment: patch adding app.update.channel to about:support, version 1

This is a patch adding the update channel to about:support (and showing a message that it has not been found if the preference app.update.channel cannot be found).

Comment 3

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

Attachment: patch adding app.update.channel to about:support, version 2

I hadn't noticed that the string bundle for the error message wasn't global. This patch contains it in the onLoad function.

Comment 4

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Comment on attachment 594482 [details] [diff] [review]
patch adding app.update.channel to about:support, version 2

Review of attachment 594482 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is going to display the incorrect update channel in some cases, please copy the correct code for retrieving it: http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/mozapps/update/nsUpdateService.js#742

Comment 5

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

Attachment: update channel in about:support, patch v3

Update patch, v3.

Thank you for the pointer, I took the code and replaced getCharPref for the partners with getComplextValue and nsISupportsString. Kev said in #partners that ascii is best practice, but metrics shows channel pollution with unicode characters from other entities.

Comment 6

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

Attachment: update channel in about support, patch v4

Updated patch. Noticed getPrefValue is available in aboutSupport.js, now using it.

Comment 7

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

(In reply to Archaeopteryx [:aryx] from comment #5)
> Created attachment 596752 [details] [diff] [review]
> update channel in about:support, patch v3
> 
> Update patch, v3.
> 
> Thank you for the pointer, I took the code and replaced getCharPref for the
> partners with getComplextValue and nsISupportsString. Kev said in #partners
> that ascii is best practice, but metrics shows channel pollution with
> unicode characters from other entities.

That change concerns me a little. If we want to display the channel in about:support then surely we want to display exactly what the application is using for update checks? Or is there some other goal here?

Comment 8

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

Of course I can revert this. Maybe we should show it like this:

Update channel: normalUC (nsISupportsString version)

Only showing the normal update channel will make it difficult for supporters to manually decrypt UTF-8 strings.

Comment 9

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Not sure showing it twice is the right solution here. What is the reason for including this in about:support, what do we expect the people to be able to do with this information?

Comment 10

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Comment on attachment 596990 [details] [diff] [review]
update channel in about support, patch v4

Clearing review till I can understand the rationale for this change

Comment 11

[Onno Ekker [:nONoNonO UTC+1]]

(In reply to Dave Townsend (:Mossop) from comment #10)
> Comment on attachment 596990 [details] [diff] [review]
> update channel in about support, patch v4
> 
> Clearing review till I can understand the rationale for this change

The troubleshooting information can be send to add-on developers for example, so they can see in what version a certain bug happens. It`d be a great help to see if a user is using thunderbird (release) or thunderbird esr...

Comment 12

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

This got implemented in bug 1109757. It uses UpdateChannel.jsm and partner handling has changed recently so I think it addresses the concerns raised here.