Re: org-capture firefox extension broken [silently]

[Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com>]

On 09/06/2022 04:13, Samuel Wales wrote:
> i really like and rely on the org-capture extension for firefox.
[...]
> however, upon an upgrade and a reboot in a security-supported debian,
> text no longer appears in org.

Samuel, do not panic. I just have tried that my LinkRemark extension is 
still able to launch org-protocol handler from Firefox-91.10 (Debian 
bullseye). My extension is not a replacement, it just mean that 
org-capture may be fixed. However I do not see bug reports for the issue:
https://github.com/sprig/org-capture-extension/issues

- Have you tried to check that org-protocol still works on your system?
       xdg-open 'org-protocol:/org-capture?url=something'
- Have you checked what action is set for org-protocol in Firefox 
settings page about:preferences "Applications" section?
- Have you tried to create a html page with an org-protocol link and to 
click on it?

> the extension does flash its large "captured" notification, suggesting
> to the user [me] that something did work.  i used to rely on that to
> know it was captured, but now i do not know what it is a reliable
> indicator of.

External scheme handler is a shoot and forget method, there is no 
reliable indicator to confirm success. The stance of mozilla developer 
is that native messaging application should be used if some feedback 
about launched application is required. Actually enough commercial 
applications use external scheme handlers. It is tricky, but some 
methods to detect failures exist. On the other hand likely you are using 
no interruption setup when captures are silently added to your inbox 
without rising any application window. It makes detection of errors in 
browser harder.

> there is a debug option but idk where hte console is in firefox.

Which console would you like to get? There are a lot of them in firefox.
- [Ctrl+Shift+J] ("More tools" section of the hamburger menu): Browser 
console. Unlikely your problem may be reported here
- [Ctrl+Shift+K] or from [F12]: web developer tools for the current 
page. Most probable place to notice the error taking into account the 
method used by org-capture-extension code
- about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox and "Inspect" button for the 
extension: mostly to check other errors related to the extension.

On 10/06/2022 06:55, Samuel Wales wrote:
> thank you for the link and suggestion.  it says it works for a version
> of ff one more than my current one.

Notice that copy-as-org-mode does not support org-protocol, it uses 
clipboard.

> anybody know how to:
> 
> 1] get a slightly older version from the firefox addons site that
> might work with my version of firefox?

There is "See all versions" link on addons.mozilla.org pages. I do not 
think it help you in the case of copy-as-org-mode, likely the developer 
uses either something newer from WebExtensions API or some JavaScript 
feature that is not available in Firefox-91.

> 2] download it as a file, /inspect it/, and then install it from the
> file [the addon site says "This add-on is not actively monitored for
> security by Mozilla. Make sure you trust it before installing."?

This warning is shown for most of add-ons on the site. Only a few of 
most popular extensions are carefully reviewed by developers. Try right 
click (context menu) for the "Add to Firefox" button and choose "Save 
Link As...". .xpi files are just ZIP archives.