Testing Simple-Storage Feature with JPM

Add-ons Development
#1

I’m attempting to add basic support for Simple-Storage to a pre-existing addon that is currently available through AMO.

In order to test the Simple-Storage feature it’s necessary for the unreleased update to my AddOn to be tested with an existing version of Firefox in such a way that I can run the add-on, close Firefox, and run it again with the stored data persisting between uses. Because of the update to Firefox 41 that prevents running addons installed from outside of AMO I would like to do so without downloading an older version of Firefox to use as a testing ground (I’m on the beta channel) as that would simply be a stopgap.

Mozilla’s simple-storage documentation recommends doing this by using the “–profiledir option to jpm” and links to the jpm documentation. The jpm documentation doesn’t mention a --profiledir option but I assume they mean the –profile option of jpm run with a profile specified. When I do this however it simply opens a copy of Firefox 41 and… I get the same “[Addon Name] could not be verified for use with in Firefox and has been disabled” error that I would get if I were simply to attempt to install the unreleased update directly into my personal version of Firefox.

Have I followed the directions incorrectly? If not, how can I test my add-on?

#2

Which version of jpm are you using? Make sure it is 1.0.1.

#3

Thanks for the input.

Unfortunately it is currently at 1.0.1. That would have been a nice easy fix. =)

#4

What is the exact command you are running?

#5

jpm run --profile default

#6

Can you please go to about:config and check the value of the preference xpinstall.signatures.required when you run Firefox with this command?

#7

You were absolutely right, it was set to true.

Unfortunately setting it to false, quitting, and executing the command again resets its value to true. This also seems like it prevents Simple Storage from persisting storage, though that could be my code failing silently.

#8

This is odd. v1.0.1 was released just because of a fix that should set that pref to false. Let me try something and get back to you.

#9

Okay. Hopefully my install is just deviating from the norm, rather than it being a broader issue.

#10

Ah, well. It might easily be that that preference is not changed if you use an already existing profile. So please just double-click on that preference in about:config and it should flip tofalse`. After a restart, you should be able to test your add-on.

#11

You were absolutely right! Nice and simple. My impulse in future will be to jump in to about:config when a problem arises – it’s a rare day when there isn’t a config option available related to the issue.

Thanks a lot for the help.

#12

I would strongly recommend NOT using simple storage because it has historically been unstable and there are no signs that it will be fixed any time soon.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1091244

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