Media Hint could not be installed because Firefox cannot modify the needed file.
I haven't seen this before, so I tried googling for the error message and found a tip about enabling "extensions.logging.enabled" and looking at the Error Console. Doing so gave me this log entry:
Timestamp: 2012-11-07 00:54:05
Error: ERROR addons.xpi: Failed to remove file C:\Users\Ironlink\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ibhkfwnd.default\extensions\trash\firebug@software.joehewitt.com.xpi: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80520015 (NS_ERROR_FILE_ACCESS_DENIED) [nsIFile.remove]" nsresult: "0x80520015 (NS_ERROR_FILE_ACCESS_DENIED)" location: "JS frame :: resource:///modules/XPIProvider.jsm :: recursiveRemove :: line 1256" data: no]
Source File: resource:///modules/XPIProvider.jsm
Line: 1256
Obviously Firefox should have R/W access to its own profile data (and I verified that it does), so the next suspect is that the file is in use. Process Explorer confirms the file is being used, by Firefox:
I see two problems with this:
- Firefox appears to be blocking itself from deleting that file.
- The add-on I'm trying to install should not in any way depend on that file being deleted. If this unnecessary operation was not part of the install, I would happily be using my new add-on.
Comments / suggestions as to where I go from here are welcome.
Edit:
Perhaps I should say that I'm on Firefox 16.0.2;
Windows 7 x64, all current updates applied.