Manually updating FF Add-ons

Question

My application installs my Firefox add-on (by copying an my.xpi to [FF_inst_dir]\extensions). This application interact with my FF add-on. This application periodically has updates (.xpi with new version). When my application is updating it does next:

1. Remove folder and content [FF_inst_dir]\extensions\MyExtension
2. Copy new my.xpi to [FF_inst_dir]\extensions

However, when I restart FF I see:

1. FF ask me about install add-on. I agree.
2. FF remove my.xpi (it's ok)
3. FF remove folder and content [FF_inst_dir]\extensions\MyExtension I think that FF try to remove old plugin.

Thus, I havn't installed plugin.

How it can be installed correct?

Answer 1

What's wrong with Firefox's built-in installation & update methods? At it's simplest, you browse to a web page and download the .xpi to install.

Is there a reason you can't post your extension to the Mozilla Add-ons site? If so, that would get you both easy installation and automatic updates when you post new versions.

Answer 2

We aren't going to support dropping XPIs into the extensions directories like this in the future. Also please please do not use the application's extensions directory for this. Instead extract your extension's files into one of the shared locations or to a directory pointed to by the registry.