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Asked: 2026-05-27T16:39:12+00:00

I have developed a small addon we use internally at our company. It’s hosted

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I have developed a small addon we use internally at our company. It’s hosted at a https enabled site and the latest addon is at https://addon.example.com/latest.xpi

My tests with updates have worked fine (from FF6 to FF7) as far as I can tell, but now I’m preparing for FF9 and I’m getting this from the compatibility checker (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/addon/validate)

Banned element in install.rdf

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

The addon does however install in Firefox (8) without errors.

The addon was built with SDK 1.3 using this command

cfx xpi -a firefox -b /opt/src/firefox9/firefox --update-link https://addon.example.com/latest.xpi --update-url https://addon.example.com/update_rdf

The install RDF file looks as follows

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RDF xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:em="http://www.mozilla.org/2004/em-rdf#">
  <Description about="urn:mozilla:install-manifest">
    <em:id>jid0-0Nt2rqZFckzRbKQ2KxdU13Q8w8Y@jetpack</em:id>
    <em:version>0.7.0</em:version>
    <em:type>2</em:type>
    <em:bootstrap>true</em:bootstrap>
    <em:unpack>true</em:unpack>

    <!-- Firefox -->
    <em:targetApplication>
      <Description>
        <em:id>{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}</em:id>
        <em:minVersion>8.0</em:minVersion>
        <em:maxVersion>9.*</em:maxVersion>
      </Description>
    </em:targetApplication>

    <!-- Front End MetaData -->
    <em:name>BOLT</em:name>
    <em:description>BOLT Extension.</em:description>
    <em:creator>Daniel</em:creator>
    <em:iconURL/>
    <em:icon64URL/>
    <em:homepageURL>https://example.com/78857360</em:homepageURL>
    <em:optionsURL/>
    <em:updateURL>https://addon.example.com/update_rdf</em:updateURL>
  </Description>
</RDF>

The Update RDF file looks as follows

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RDF xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:em="http://www.mozilla.org/2004/em-rdf#">
  <Description about="urn:mozilla:extension:jid0-0Nt2rqZFckzRbKQ2KxdU13Q8w8Y@jetpack">
    <em:updates>
      <Seq>
        <li>
          <Description>
            <em:version>0.7.0</em:version>
            <em:targetApplication>
              <Description>
                <em:id>{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}</em:id>
                <em:minVersion>8.0</em:minVersion>
                <em:maxVersion>9.*</em:maxVersion>
                <em:updateLink>https://addon.example.com/latest.xpi</em:updateLink>
              </Description>
            </em:targetApplication>
          </Description>
        </li>
      </Seq>
    </em:updates>
  </Description>
</RDF>

I’m might confused here. Looking at the docs at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/1.3/dev-guide/addon-development/cfx-tool.html I can’t really see what would be wrong.

Any insight is appreciated.

(cross-posted here: https://forums.mozilla.org/addons/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4429&p=13667#p13667)

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The compatibility checker was originally meant for add-ons hosted on addons.mozilla.org – and addons.mozilla.org doesn’t allow add-ons to set updateURL, the updates have to come from addons.mozilla.org again. If you don’t plan to host your add-on on addons.mozilla.org then you can safely ignore that error, it won’t affect you.

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