763365 - Launching an installed web application with no supported version of Firefox installed for web apps results in a not so useful error message to the user

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox Graveyard :: Web Apps, defect, P3)

Description

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

Steps:

1. Install a Nightly build with support for linux web apps
2. Launch it and install a web application
3. Launch and close that web application
4. Uninstall that Nightly build and ensure that no build in the system has support for linux web apps
5. Launch the web application

Expected:

A "useful" error message should be reported indicating to the user that they need to have a Firefox build of FF 15 or higher to be able to launch web applications on Linux.

Actual:

A not-so-useful error message is thrown to the user - "Couldn't find application.ini file." This isn't good, as we really should be throwing useful error messages at the user.

Comment 1

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Jason, what's the error message in the Windows and Mac version?

Comment 2

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

(In reply to Marco Castelluccio from comment #1)
> Jason, what's the error message in the Windows and Mac version?

On Windows:

WebappRT

This app requires that Firefox version 14 or above is installed. Firefox 14+ has not been detected.

Note - The version number here is incorrect here, but you get the idea. Should say 15 instead of 14 (which I'll file a bug on that now...)

Comment 3

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

(In reply to Jason Smith [:jsmith] from comment #2)
> (In reply to Marco Castelluccio from comment #1)
> > Jason, what's the error message in the Windows and Mac version?
> 
> On Windows:
> 
> WebappRT
> 
> This app requires that Firefox version 14 or above is installed. Firefox 14+
> has not been detected.
> 
> Note - The version number here is incorrect here, but you get the idea.
> Should say 15 instead of 14 (which I'll file a bug on that now...)

What do you think of "Couldn't find application.ini file. Have you uninstalled or moved Firefox to another directory?"

Comment 4

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

(In reply to Marco Castelluccio from comment #3)
> (In reply to Jason Smith [:jsmith] from comment #2)
> > (In reply to Marco Castelluccio from comment #1)
> > > Jason, what's the error message in the Windows and Mac version?
> > 
> > On Windows:
> > 
> > WebappRT
> > 
> > This app requires that Firefox version 14 or above is installed. Firefox 14+
> > has not been detected.
> > 
> > Note - The version number here is incorrect here, but you get the idea.
> > Should say 15 instead of 14 (which I'll file a bug on that now...)
> 
> What do you think of "Couldn't find application.ini file. Have you
> uninstalled or moved Firefox to another directory?"

I'd just go with the same message that Windows uses.

Comment 5

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

CCing Myk as he said we should find a better way to report these problems (on Linux, Win and Mac).

Comment 6

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Indeed, we should find a better way.  But that's a longer term project, and it shouldn't prevent us from making iterative improvements to the messages in the meantime.  So let's keep this bug focused on bringing the Linux message up to par with the Windows and Mac ones.

Comment 7

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Attachment: Patch

Comment 8

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/962af4981b64

Comment 9

[(no longer active)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/962af4981b64