Self-signed addon is currently stuck at "Awaiting Review"

Hi, I had to do an emergency update to my self-signed addon. I uploaded the new version to addons.mozilla.org but unlike before where usually I receive an email within 5 minutes, it’s been almost 30 minutes now and it’s still stuck at “Awaiting review”.

My addon only has two warnings:

https://i.gyazo.com/2f7026d14ab81168816994d2d0fbb1cf.png

but they are completely irrelevant, and I have already done this process countless of times in the past with no problems. So what is going on here exactly?

Also what is the purpose of this whole thing, I remember a few months ago all of this process was instantaneous, it makes no sense for me to have to wait 5 minutes or more for self-signed and self-distributed addons.

You may have hit a spam prevention measure, I believe review times will occasionally be longer for spam prevention.

Can you please explain what is a “spam prevention measure”, the last time I updated my addon was nearly two months ago, Jan. 21, 2020 to be precise.

Should I try to delete this version and upload a new one, or this will only make matters worse?

I have the same issue for over a day, and my current version has no warnings. Is there some way we can verify ourselves so that we don’t hit these kinds of issues? I’m not distributing my addon via AMO.

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I am not distributing my addon via AMO either, I use my own server for that where my coworkers just download the .xpi file. This wasn’t an issue few months ago because once you upload your addon it got instantly reviewed by a bot.

But now, you have to wait 5 minutes for review (not sure what the reason for that is) and right now when I needed an urgent update it stopped working so we’re all kind of left at the mercy of someone at Mozilla to manually review this because our work depends on this (not completely but partly).

Very disappointing.

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I got the same problem. I was able to self-sign 2 days ago, after 6 minutes delay.
Now i’ve got an addon in “waiting” state for 5 hours.

I wonder if self-signed addons are still being signed automaticaly, or reviewed manually ? If so, will it still be possible to self-sign during weekend ?

@jeannormend I have literally no idea, as far as I’m aware the process should be automatic, it’s not like a person will sit down and start looking at your code.

Once you submit the addon, you are greeted with this message which sounds like all tests passed and you’re about to get the approval shortly. It always used to be like that anyway.

I hope this is just some kind of a temporary bug that they are able to fix once the weekend is over, but my biggest fear here is that no one will possibly reply. There is a similar issue here:

https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/self-distributed-add-on-awaiting-review-for-over-a-week/49784

But if you check the Mozilla’s representative profile which resolved the issue, @TheOne, his last reply is from December last year.

I have tried tweeting @mozamo on twitter, linking to this thread, but so far no reply or anything.

I don’t think there has been anyone reviewing updated extensions today. I’ve been stuck in queue at same position for the last (I think) 10-12 hours.
According to my Edit Product Page on AMO, there are currently 110 extensions queued for review. I don’t think there are anything else to do, than being a little patient…

Where exactly are you getting this information and numbers from? I can’t find such number or anything under https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/addon/.../versions

I find the number on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/developers/addon/xifr/edit

Replace “xifr” with the name/address of your extension. It is in the upper left corner box:

Mine started at #83 maybe 10 hours ago. A couple of hours later I found and fixed a bug. And since I was still at #83, I decided to cancel my first upload and add the bugfixed version instead. It has been at #97 ever since…

Of course my extension is available for install via AMO. Self-distributed might not have this page(?) I don’t know the procedures of self-distributing, I just see something seems to be stuck today. Also for “normal” extensions…

Thank you very much for this information. Unfortunately, for me no such thing is available, my addon is self-distributed as mentioned:

I mean I can understand why they want to review public extensions available on AMO, but having to wait for an undetermined amount of time for addons that are self-distributed makes no sense whatsoever, especially in cases where you need to push critical updates fast, and time is of the essence. People using such addons probably already know what they are doing anyway, and it can make a huge (negative impact) on small organizations such as mine.

I am not going to raise any pitchforks here, been using Firefox for probably over 20 years, but if this is the way they are going to move forward then there should have been some kind of clear communication going on, a disclaimer.

How is that information helpful in any possible way, other than telling me that it’s stuck at “awaiting review”?

@gorhill, the comment with the screenshot of the edit page was addressed towards the previous comment made by Stig Nygaard, where I speculated that self-distributed addons don’t get such queue info such as the one he highlighted in yellow in their comment.

I appreciate actually your input where you actually explained you’re observing levels that you haven’t seen in years

I can see the queue steadily growing since yesterday to level I haven’t seen in years.

it leads me to believe this might be a bug so it’s a very useful information, no need to turn passive aggressive or turn against each other.

But when I asked “How is that information helpful in any possible way” I meant, how does this present information that I am already not aware of already and it was a genuine question.

The whole frustration here (and what this thread is about) comes from the fact that self-distributed addons never had an issue before. Few months ago you pass some checks, addon gets signed and it’s ready to use. Fast-forward few months Moz implemented some change where you have to wait 5 min for the same process.

Now the problem is that numerous people are facing the issue where hours and days have passed and you can’t get your addon verified, it’s practically unusable outside of dev environment.

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Mine is stuck in the queue at #53 since yesterday evening, Europe time. It has been steadily growing since then and now the queue is 116 … My add-on is distributed via AMO.

Obviously, the process is stuck or it crashed (I never entered it at possition 53, the biggest I had over roughly 2 years was 13 I think).

Let’s wait that somebody at AMO restarts it …

The whole frustration here (and what this thread is about) comes from the fact that self-distributed addons never had an issue before.

Just remember that there was a big issue with certificate expiration for addons less than 1 year ago. Now we HAVE to sign addons, even for personal usage… So we’re now dependant on Mozilla’s bugs, negligence and politic changes… we lost freedom for personal usage

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@jeannormend I am not against signing extensions actually, there are a lot of benefits with that. An automated review by Moz and some hash check for file integrity is at least some layer of defense for people who might be tricked into installing something they don’t want to. Of course it’s not a bullet-proof solution either, but it’s at least something.

And all of us developers can always use about:debugging, Firefox developer edition and whatnot. Problem is, as a small organization, it creates an unnecessary discomfort if you have to tell 5-10 coworkers to install a different browser (Firefox dev ed) because “reasons” and you can’t even distribute the addon an all previously saved settings in an easy way via normal means. It’s just not feasible.

All of that would have never been a problem if things were just as normal as they were a week ago where Moz provided a smooth and quick process for responsible developers and small organizations who just want to get things done.

Either way, all of the replies by other people experiencing similar issues in this thread lead me to believe that this is just a temporary setback (possible server issue on Mozilla’s end) rather than an ongoing practice. Hoping for an official response either here or elsewhere, will reserve my personal opinion after I see one, or if there is an absence of such.

Hi
I have submitted my personal addon yesterday but it is still in " Awaiting Review ". I had submitted an older update in March 6 and it was aprroved just in a few minutes. But the latest update is not approved yet. :frowning:

Man, I thought my addon had some warnings and hence in the “Awaiting Reveiw” phase. I just deleted and readded a new version.> still nothings changed… Do Firefox Team watch this thread? is there an alternate way to reach them?

Problem seems to be fixed now, as mentioned here:


My updated addon is also available on AMO now.

Oops, I just realized I replied to the wrong thread. So, here it is again:

Thank you for the reports, this was a glitch that has been resolved. All add-ons should have been auto-approved by now.

In the future, please report technical non-sensitive issues at github.com/mozilla/addons/