Firefox displays outdated information from MDN on newly self-hosted extension - help?

[zark...@gmail.com]

Hi all,

I'm trying to switch the Firefox extension I'm developing from being hosted on MDN/mozilla.org to being self-hosted. I have added an entry to install.rdf pointing to an update.rdf on my own server.

However, I am finding that if a given Firefox profile has ever had the older, hosted-on-MDN version installed in it, it will then continue to look up information from MDN instead of just using the information contained in the extension's install.rdf. This means that the information on the extension displayed in about:addons stays out of date.

Here is a detailed walkthrough:

- Create a new Firefox profile.
- Manually install newest version of the Firefox extension by dropping it into extensions/ and then confirming the install. This extension is self-hosted: it has a updateURL set in its install.rdf.
- Go to about:addons and confirm that the information displayed about the plugin is the information from the extension's install.rdf. (Description, creator, etc.)
- Uninstall the extension.
- Install the old non-self-hosted version of the extension from MDN, via the add-ons manager interface.
- Go to about:addons and confirm that the information displayed about the extension is information sourced from MDN. (Description, creator, etc.) Search all files that comprise this version of the extension to make sure that the information displayed is definitely not contained within it, and hence is sourced from MDN.
- Uninstall this version of the extension.
- Again install the new, self-hosted version of the extension by dropping it into extensions/ and confirming the install with Firefox.
- Go to about:addons. Observe that the displayed information is *still* sourced from MDN, despite this being the self-hosted version. Specifically, the creator and description are sourced from MDN, while the icon is sourced from install.rdf.

Firefox appears to be caching information about the extension even when the extension has been uninstalled, and once a given extension has been seen to be hosted on MDN, it will continue getting information from MDN even if the extension is now self-hosted.

Is there some step of this I'm missing beyond setting a updateURL value in the extension's install.rdf? Is this a bug in Firefox? Is there a workaround?

- David

[Godmar Back]

When I uploaded my extension, it would refuse it if the install.rdf file
even contained an updateURL - so how did you manage to upload your revised
version to get your users off amo?

- Godmar

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[David Stark]

I haven't. The plan is to just link the users to the new .xpi hosted on the extension's own website. (And then to probably de-list the old version from mozilla.org.) So getting the users to update isn't the issue - it's the leakage from mozilla.org into a plugin that's supposedly not connected to mozilla.org. Both because the info will get increasingly outdated and because I worry it might interfere with pushing out updates down the line.

- David

[Dave Townsend]

On 10/15/12 03:49, zark...@gmail.com wrote:
> Firefox appears to be caching information about the extension even when the extension has been uninstalled, and once a given extension has been seen to be hosted on MDN, it will continue getting information from MDN even if the extension is now self-hosted.
>
> Is there some step of this I'm missing beyond setting a updateURL value in the extension's install.rdf? Is this a bug in Firefox? Is there a workaround?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Addons/Working_with_AM

[cale...@northviewchurch.com]

You need to set this preference:

pref("extensions.YOUR_ADDON_ID.getAddons.cache.enabled", false);

It will keep Firefox from getting info about your add-on from AMO.

It might not take effect immediately.

[Jorge Villalobos]

That should be
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Addons/Working_with_AMO

Jorge

[David Stark]

Brilliant! That did the trick. I somehow missed that bit when I read the pages about self-hosting.

Thanks,

- David