Self-hosted add-on install is broken on Firefox 100.0 and 101 beta
Hello! We distribute Firefox add-ons on PC and macOS outside of Mozilla store.
Until Firefox 100.0 our users were able to install the add-on by clicking a button on the product side which was opening a link to XPI file hosted on our company's download server. That was triggering a usual install dialog from Firefox where it asks user to confirm the installation.
Starting from Firefox 100.0 this stopped happening and we started receiving numerous support calls from our customers about not being able to install the add-on. The issue now is that when the XPI link is opened in Firefox, the install dialog does not appear which brings a lot of confusion to the user. Firefox shows the link to the XPI in the address bar but does not start the usual install process (attaching screenshot of how it looks like on my Mac). The issue applies to both macOS and Windows platforms. I've opened a bug case on bugzilla. The link for reference: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1766965
Could someone please clarify how we should proceed with this issue? We are now getting reports of this issue from many of our customers. Thank you.
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cannot seem to upload the screenshot (the progress bar just keeps spinning). But it's an empty page with XPI link in the address bar The issue can be reproduced by running "open -a Firefox <link_to_XPI>" on macOS
Add-on questions should be posted in the add-ons forum; https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/c/add-ons
Note: If you have problems when uploading the image to this forum, you can use imgur. com or a similar image host if the image appears to hang on upload, then add a link to the image. However, this may delay a response if the external link needs review by a moderator.
There was an e-mail about changes of the install flow for 3rd party distributors. But direct link to xpi still should be working.
Hi, thanks for the response! Yes, I've also posted a similar message on Discourse. The link: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/self-hosted-firefox-extension-install-flow-is-broken-on-firefox-100-101-beta/96935. Managed to upload the screenshot there.
But yeah, this was our understanding too that direct XPI link should still work. But that's not the case anymore. And that's causing a lot of issues to our customer support and end customers as well.
Just wanted to double-check if there is anything we can do to stress out the severity of the issue for us and hopefully resolve it.
Anything suspicious happens in the Console while clicking? Is your website permitted to install addons on a client side?
TyDraniu said
Anything suspicious happens in the Console while clicking? Is your website permitted to install addons on a client side?
Hmm. Found this in the console.
[Exception... "https://download.sp.f-secure.com/firefox-extension-install/beta/browsing-protection.firefoxextension.xpi install cancelled because of missing user gesture activation" nsresult: "0x0 (NS_OK)" location: "JS frame :: resource://gre/modules/amContentHandler.jsm :: handleContent :: line 51" data: no] amContentHandler.jsm:51:32 handleContent resource://gre/modules/amContentHandler.jsm:51
So sounds to me that it's exactly about the changes in the self-hosted extension install process. And indeed in our case, the user does not click on the link. The main product opens the link in Firefox and expects it to start the install process.
So in the essence, it is a user initiated action (user clicks on the button in the product UI) but Firefox only allows direct user click on the link to XPI which is a bummer if I understand the situation correctly.
The team on Discourse should be able to help you with this.