Ubuntu
firefox package

Google search suggestions do not work due to erroneous URL

Bug #1733970 reported by Neil Aspinall
22
This bug affects 5 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
firefox (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
High
Chris Coulson

Bug Description

Release: Ubuntu 17.04
Package: firefox 57.0+build4-0ubuntu0.17.10.5

Google search suggestions (i.e. completion of search terms in the address bar) will not work in this release.

Investigation shows that the problem lies in e.g.
/usr/lib/firefox/distribution/searchplugins/locale/en-GB/google.xml

Search suggestions are configured to use this URL:
https://www.google.com/complete/search?client=ubuntu&q={searchTerms}

However testing shows that this URL always fails with a 400 error, but if you replace the "ubuntu" in the URL with "firefox" (as the vanilla Firefox release has it) then it does work.
Compare the responses for these URLs:
https://www.google.com/complete/search?client=ubuntu&q=test
https://www.google.com/complete/search?client=firefox&q=test

So if I change "ubuntu" to "firefox" in google.xml, and then start Firefox with a new profile, Google search suggestions start workng again.

Revision history for this message
Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson) wrote :

Yeah, sorry about that. I refreshed all of our custom search plugins just before we released 57.0 and made a mistake with this one. I've uploaded builds with a fix for this, although they aren't going to be published until Monday

Changed in firefox (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)
importance: Undecided → High
status: New → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Pavel (spvkgn) wrote :

Is there a way to restore Google search suggestions working with existing Firefox profile?

Revision history for this message
Prahlad Yeri (prahladyeri) wrote :

The quantum release was otherwise great, except for this little glitch. There is a similar bug raised on Mozilla support forum (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1188416), and I wasn't surprised that the issue lied at the Canonical end. It looks like you have messed up the location of the Google search bar plugin, while that of other plugins are intact, as one comment in that thread mentions:

> The main thing I notice is that the Google search plugin is located in a folder under [distribution] while the others are in the compressed program file omni.ja:

"_name":"Google","_shortName":"google",
"_loadPath":"[distribution]/searchplugins/locale/en-US/google.xml"

"_name":"Yahoo","_shortName":"yahoo",
"_loadPath":"jar:[app]/omni.ja!browser/yahoo.xml"

"_name":"Bing","_shortName":"bing",
"_loadPath":"jar:[app]/omni.ja!browser/bing.xml"

Can you confirm when will this update available on Xenial?

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package firefox - 57.0+build4-0ubuntu0.17.04.6

---------------
firefox (57.0+build4-0ubuntu0.17.04.6) zesty-security; urgency=medium

  * Fix LP: #1733970 - Search suggestions are broken after refreshing the
    Google searchplugin
  * Fix a missing token in the user agent string
    - update debian/patches/ubuntu-ua-string-changes.patch
    - update debian/patches/support-coinstallable-trunk-build.patch
    - update debian/build/rules.mk
    - update debian/config/mozconfig.in

 -- Chris Coulson <email address hidden> Thu, 23 Nov 2017 16:47:12 +0000

Changed in firefox (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package firefox - 57.0+build4-0ubuntu0.14.04.5

---------------
firefox (57.0+build4-0ubuntu0.14.04.5) trusty-security; urgency=medium

  * Fix LP: #1733970 - Search suggestions are broken after refreshing the
    Google searchplugin
  * Fix a missing token in the user agent string
    - update debian/patches/ubuntu-ua-string-changes.patch
    - update debian/patches/support-coinstallable-trunk-build.patch
    - update debian/build/rules.mk
    - update debian/config/mozconfig.in

 -- Chris Coulson <email address hidden> Thu, 23 Nov 2017 17:02:23 +0000

Changed in firefox (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package firefox - 57.0+build4-0ubuntu0.17.10.6

---------------
firefox (57.0+build4-0ubuntu0.17.10.6) artful-security; urgency=medium

  * Fix LP: #1733970 - Search suggestions are broken after refreshing the
    Google searchplugin
  * Fix a missing token in the user agent string
    - update debian/patches/ubuntu-ua-string-changes.patch
    - update debian/patches/support-coinstallable-trunk-build.patch
    - update debian/build/rules.mk
    - update debian/config/mozconfig.in

 -- Chris Coulson <email address hidden> Thu, 23 Nov 2017 13:18:24 +0000

Changed in firefox (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
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