Add-on doesn't load at customer site

Add-ons Add-on Support
#1

I have developed an add-on that is sideloaded by a Windows installer, as part of a suite of communications software. One of our customers has contacted support and claims that the add-on is not working (FF 45.0.1). The add-on shows up in the Add-on Manager. The customer has provided a screenshot, and as far as I can tell, it looks like the add-on is enabled in their browser. However, one of the very first things that the add-on does in the main.js file is to load an ActionButton (‘sdk/ui/button/action’), and there is no button in the toolbar of their browser.

I requested that the user set extensions.sdk.console.logLevel preference to “all”, and provide me with all messages in the Browser Console. There is nothing in the Browser Console from my extension, neither log messages nor errors.

I’m at a loss on how to further debug this issue. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

  • danBhentschel
#2

I think to really give meaningful help, we’d need to see the code of that add-on.

#3

Thank you very much for your response. That’s fine. Here are a few Pastebins:

package.json
main.js
ExtensionFactory.js
AnimatorFactory.js

It’s not the complete codebase, but these files should at least get you past the initialization code. I appreciate your help.

  • danBhentschel
#4

And here’s an image supplied by the customer of the Add-on Manager, showing that the add-on is installed. Notice that the icon does not appear in the toolbar. Other expected functionality (DOM modification, context menu, etc.) reportedly also doesn’t work.

ffoxPluginManager.png1928×1080 49 KB

I have asked for the output of about:support. I haven’t received it from the customer yet.

  • danBhentschel
#5

They should check if the add-on button appears in the customization panel. If it doesn’t, then it sounds like there’s some exception being thrown in the code, which is strange since it should show up in the console.

#6

Thanks. I think I’ve got this somewhat figured out. I just got the about:support output this afternoon, and the user has:

browser.privatebrowsing.autostart: true

I have tested locally and verified that my add-on doesn’t load in private mode. A brief search indicates that FF shouldn’t disable add-ons in private mode. Is there something specific that I could have put into my add-on that causes it to stop working in private browsing mode?

  • danBhentschel
#7

If it is an SDK-based add-on (as it seems the case here), it needs to specify "private-browsing": true in the permissions dictionary of package.json to access private browsing windows.

1 Like
#8

Thank you very much. I appreciate your taking the time to point this out to me!

  • danBhentschel