744576 - Search for Thunderbird add-ons also return Firefox add-ons

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Search, defect)

Description

[Eric Moore]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:12.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/12.0
Build ID: 20120403211507

Steps to reproduce:

I went to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ and searched for some add-ons by typing a word in the search field, and then clicked on one of the items in the search results. I get the same results whether I click on a link in the popup list or in the "search results for X" web page. 


Actual results:

Sometimes the search results include Firefox only add-ons. I'm not talking about an add-on that may support Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey - I'm talking about one that only supports Firefox. I'm aware of the naming convention in the file that identifies what applications it supports and am used to occasionally being redirected to a Firefox add-on page that contains an add-on that can also be used with Thunderbird. That can be confusing but I'm not talking about that.
 
For example, type snippet and click on snipshot. That takes you to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/snipshot/ . That has a snipshot-1.0-fx.xpi add-on.

Type abbrev and click on abbreviations. That takes you to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/abbreviations/ . That has abbreviations-20110220.xml

Type buttons and click on tab buttons. That takes you to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-buttons/ . It downloads tab_buttons-0.2.8-fx.xpi . As a sanity check I downloaded that file and tried to install it in Thunderbird 11.0.1. It complained "Tab buttons could not be installed because it is not compatible with Thunderbird 11.0.1"

This problem was much worse until about a week ago. I thought it was fixed, but it appears it just occurs for less add-ons than before.

Its far less common, but I can search on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ and get search results that include Thunderbird specific add-ons. For example, type lightning and click on the lightning link and it will take you to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/lightning/ .  That downloads lightning-1.3-tb+sm-windows.xpi which supports Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, but not Firefox. However, you mainly see this problem when searching for Thunderbird add-ons.

I only see this problem using the add-ons web site in a browser. If I search for snippet using "tools -> add-ons -> search"in Thunderbird for example, it tells me "Could not find any matching add-ons". That is correct but I don't consider that an acceptable workaround for searching on AMO as it has its own problems, and doesn't let you access all of the information on the add-ons web page such as the developers comments, version information or development channel, the categories or reviews.




Expected results:

The search results should have returned only Thunderbird add-ons. Clicking on a a link to an add-on should have taken you to a page for a Thunderbird add-on on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ (with the Thunderbird logo), not https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox

Comment 1

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

Thanks for filing this.  Due to resource constraints we are closing bugs which we won't realistically be able to fix.  If you have a patch that applies to this bug please reopen.

For more info see http://micropipes.com/blog/2014/09/24/the-great-add-on-bug-triage/