Uninstalling the core add-on doesn't uninstall study add-ons and causes confusing UX

[jonathanmayer]

If you uninstall the Rally core add-on, there's a data deletion ping to the Telemetry backend, but study add-ons remain installed. That might confuse users, especially since the Rally support library continues to automatically open the "Hold up. You're missing the Rally add-on!" page on browser startup. A possible fix would be for the Rally support library to add a browser.management.onUninstalled listener, and if the core add-on is uninstalled, treat that as if the core add-on had sent an uninstall message to the study add-on.

rally-core-addon/support/rally.js

Line 166 in 4474442

case "uninstall":

[hamilton]

@jonathanmayer Thanks for reporting. When you say "uninstall the Rally core add-on" do you mean through the core add-on options page or manually? In the former case, it should uninstall all studies.

[jonathanmayer]

Manually uninstalling on about:addons. Leaving Rally from the options page works fine.

[rhelmer]

If you uninstall the Rally core add-on, there's a data deletion ping to the Telemetry backend, but study add-ons remain installed. That might confuse users, especially since the Rally support library continues to automatically open the "Hold up. You're missing the Rally add-on!" page on browser startup. A possible fix would be for the Rally support library to add a browser.management.onUninstalled listener, and if the core add-on is uninstalled, treat that as if the core add-on had sent an uninstall message to the study add-on.

rally-core-addon/support/rally.js

Line 166 in 4474442

case "uninstall":

Yes I believe this would work, but it would require studies to have the management permission. I don't think that's a deal-breaker necessarily, we just try to use the minimal permissions necessary.

[jonathanmayer]

A couple other approaches come to mind.

• Poll install state with messages between add-ons. For example, on startup, the Rally support library could send a message to the core add-on. If the core add-on doesn't correctly respond (maybe with a little retrying to account for add-on startup sequencing and upgrading), assume the core add-on is gone and uninstall. The Rally support library already does a simple version of this, which is what triggers the "Hold up. You're missing the Rally add-on!" page.
• Push install state with a Port between add-ons. For example, on startup, the Rally support library could open a Port to the core add-on. If the Port errors out, that's an indication that the core add-on might be gone.