« UI Spoofing, Security and Stupidity. | Main | QT Port is Back »

September 8, 2004

How to Test Firefox's Plugin Finder Service

My sample plugin service currently serves flash for linux and Java for Windows. To test:

Go to about:config and set "plugin.default_plugin_disabled" to true.

To test java, uninstall it and go to http://www.nexgenmedia.net/ff/pfs/test-java.html. For Flash, try any website that needs it :)

Posted by doron at September 8, 2004 6:55 PM

Comments

It seems that you have to restart Firefox after setting the preference. At least, that seems to be the case if you visit your test page once prior to setting the pref.

Posted by: Darin Fisher at September 8, 2004 7:27 PM

Using today's aviary branch build, Firefox crashed on me after clicking on the page a bit. I submitted a talkback report, so hopefully something useful will show up there.

Posted by: Darin Fisher at September 8, 2004 7:30 PM

One more comment. It seems that I can make multiple plugin finder windows appear by clicking on the plugin multiple times. Maybe the dialog should be modal? Or maybe other clicks should be ignored?

Posted by: Darin Fisher at September 8, 2004 7:32 PM

I got a very slick-looking dialog after I set this and the plugin apparently downloaded and installed correctly; however, after it downloaded the page refreshed and showed me exactly the same missing plugin icon.

I tried restarting firefox, but after restarting, clicking on a missing plugin icon caused Firefox to (apparently) crash. I didn't even get a talkback window. This is using Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040908 Firefox/0.10.

Posted by: Joe at September 9, 2004 5:49 AM

Continued attempts to install Flash from getmoreblackberry.com failed in the same way: the Flash plugin is never seen as installed. I tried reproducing the crash but I wasn't ever able to.

Posted by: Joe at September 9, 2004 5:51 AM

getmoreblackberry.com seems to work fine on aviary branch cvs - removing flash showed the wizard and refreshing the page worked fine. Hrm.

Posted by: Doron at September 9, 2004 6:55 AM

Is this code on trunk? Is it on 1.7 branch?

Posted by: Boris at September 9, 2004 9:31 AM

Ok, the installer successfully put the flashplayer.xpt and libflashplayer.so into my ~/.firefox/plugins directory, but firefox (apparently) ignored that directory when searching for plugins. With 20040909 installer build, I had to drop the files into $(installed directory)/plugins for the flash player to be recognized.

Posted by: Joe at September 9, 2004 10:05 AM

When using this browser, and I go to the following site http://www.odquiz.co.uk
When I try to click on any of the links on the left side of the main page. I get a box "PLUGIN FINDER SERVICE" with the message 'No Suitable Plugins were found'.
This dosn't happen if I use I.E. Has anyone any idea of what I need to do?

Posted by: ron at September 15, 2004 3:13 PM

I am experiencing the same problem noticed by Joe.
Firefox installs flash plugin in my profile plugins folder but it does not recognize it. I tried other plugins (java plugin for example) and they do not work if installed in my profile folder. They work perfectly if put in the firefox installation directory.
Firefox 1.0 pre
Red Hat 9
Never tried plugins on profile folder with previous release of firefox.

Posted by: Enrico at September 17, 2004 3:23 AM