814018 - No possible way to downgrade to earlier version

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Stefan Schäfer]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:16.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/16.0
Build ID: 20121024073032

Steps to reproduce:

I had activated automatically update of firefox. 


Actual results:

Firefox updated from version 16.0.2 to 17.0. After that there was an essential plugin no more compatible. Thus firefox is no longer usable for me.
I tried to find a way, to downgrade to Version 16.0.2 to wait until my plugin will be adopted for the latest firefox version. I found no way. There was no source to download Version 16.0.2. I installed the old Version 14. I found in my PC. After that I wanted to update to version 16.0.2. - no way. Firefox downloaded always Version 17.0 - I could not choose any special version.


Expected results:

I expected, that I would be able to downgrade back to my previous state 16.0.2 to decrease the vulnerability while keep my firefox usable. 
Automatic update is a very good Idea, but what if the update ruins the usability of the program?
IMHO there MUST be a way to reverse the update in that case. If not, I can't use automatic update any more. That can't be intended!

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

This is no bug in the product (Firefox.exe) and bugzilla is not the support.
Please contact the support under http://support.mozilla.org if you have just questions like this one. 
The first google hit for "firefox downgrade" should take you to http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-of-firefox

Downgrading is in general no good idea (insecure) and therefore not supported.

Comment 2

[Stefan Schäfer]

Great.
If you have enabled the option "Automatic updates but warn if a Addon will be deactivated"  you got the warning: This update will deactivate all your Addons but GOTCHA - you can't do anything against it: firefox will update and you will not be able to use the addons anymore. You can't quit the update. 

That's the way I expected to be treated by Microsoft but not Mozilla.
I think I should have the rigth to decide if I want to update under this circumstances.

Comment 3

[Stefan Schäfer]

And currently I can't decide this.

Comment 4

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

>That's the way I expected to be treated by Microsoft but not Mozilla.
I didn't see the note in comment#0 that you had the warning enabled, only a rant that you can't downgrade and can't find an older version on the Mozilla.org site to download.

Comment 5

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

(In reply to Stefan Schäfer from comment #2)
> Great.
> If you have enabled the option "Automatic updates but warn if a Addon will
> be deactivated"  you got the warning: This update will deactivate all your
> Addons but GOTCHA - you can't do anything against it: firefox will update
> and you will not be able to use the addons anymore. You can't quit the
> update. 
> 
> That's the way I expected to be treated by Microsoft but not Mozilla.
> I think I should have the rigth to decide if I want to update under this
> circumstances.
When presented with the list of add-ons that will be disabled (note: this list only contains add-ons that are incompatible and don't have an update that is compatible vs. all of your add-ons) you can close the UI in the upper right corner on Windows, etc. to not update.

The Mozilla security team made it a requirement that the app update system does not allow updating to an older version so as far as app update is concerned this is invalid.

As for being able to find the older version to download that would not be an app update bug so moving back to triage.

Comment 6

[Stefan Schäfer]

(In reply to Robert Strong [:rstrong] (do not email) from comment #5)

> When presented with the list of add-ons that will be disabled (note: this
> list only contains add-ons that are incompatible and don't have an update
> that is compatible vs. all of your add-ons) you can close the UI in the
> upper right corner on Windows,
true
> etc. to not update.
> 
Unfortunately not true. I did not expect this, so I did not try it in the first time but pressed 'Jetzt Prüfen' (check now) and later on 'Nicht prüfen' (don't check).

After you mentioned this solution I tried to close the UI window. The Window closed successfully. And firefox did upgrade to 17 neverthless.

> The Mozilla security team made it a requirement that the app update system
> does not allow updating to an older version so as far as app update is
> concerned this is invalid.

Makes sense. But then present a choice to update or not  - if after updating an addon will be disabled
> 
> As for being able to find the older version to download that would not be an
> app update bug so moving back to triage.

So the title should be rather 'prevent from unwanted update if then needed Addons are disabled and could not be used anymore.

Comment 7

[Stefan Schäfer]

Closed and reopened with more fitting title under https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814830