"Banned element in install.rdf" error when validating extension

Hello everyone,

I got this issue when trying to upload my extension to Mozilla Add-on. First time, I tried to upload and validate with the checking on “Do not list my add-on on this site (beta)” and everything is fine. But when trying to upload my extension without selecting checkbox of “Do not list my add-on on this site (beta)”, I got the following error message

"Banned element in install.rdf file

Error: The element “updateURL” was found in the add-on’s install.rdf. It is not allowed in add-ons under the current configuration."

I don’t believe that this element is banned by Mozilla because I cannot find any documents regard to it on MDN. Could someone help to clarify why I passed the validation at the first time with selecting the check-box and got failed after un-selecting it? And what should I do in this case to keep my extension being update to newest version automatically?

Thank you so much.

Addons listed on AMO get updated from AMO. It’ll automatically update to the newest version published on AMO. The way they do it is a bit weird to me, but any addon without an updateURL defaults to updating from AMO, and you therefore can’t have an updateURL on AMO.

1 Like

Thanks @arenlor so much. I got your point. And if my extenions is unlisted (non AMO), so I could ignore this error message and still go to submission and signing as normally.

One more question, please

Reference to critical user profile data
Warning: Critical files in the user profile should not be directly accessed by addons. In many cases, an equivalent API is available and should be used instead.
Severity for automated signing: low
Suggestions for passing automated signing:
Please avoid touching files in the user profile which do not belong to your addon. If the effects that you are trying to achieve cannot be replicated with a built-in API, we strongly encourage you to remove this functionality.

bootstrap.js

  main: main,
  prefsURI: rootURI + 'defaults/preferences/prefs.js'

});

As I researched, because of Mozilla issue 564675 - “Allow bootstrapped add-ons to have default preferences”. This issue has not been fixed yet and we have to workaround to allow bootstrapped add-on to have default preferences. Unfortunately, it causes the warning message like above. Could someone give me some instruction to bypass this warning? Could I ignore this warning and my extension still be fine to get signing automatically?

I think you can likely safely ignore it, just explain in a note to the reviewer what it’s for.

Thank @arenlor.