browser.search.defaultenginename does not work from distribution.ini

Binary package hint: firefox

As part of https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/Oneiric/LocalizedCDImageTools I'm trying to set a system-wide default for Firefox' search engine.

The most straightforward way of doing this is to set e. g.

  browser.search.defaultenginename="Wikipedia (de)"

in /usr/lib/firefox-5.0/distribution/distribution.ini. However, while distribution.ini works fine for the startup page and bookmarks, the default search engine doesn't: I do see the updated default in about:config, but it doesn't get effective (it stays at google).

I also tried various other combinations, like additionally setting browser.search.order.1 to "Wikipedia (de)" as well (no effect), or setting both to "Bing" (which interestingly _does_ change the default, but to "Amazon (de)").

Changing the preference in /etc/firefox/sysprefs.js has no effect either (but does appear in about:config).

When I change browser.search.defaultenginename (and no other keys) in about:config, it does have the intended effect, so it seems that it works in the per-user config, but not in the system config.

Chris says that this is because the system preferences are read after most of Firefox (including the search engine widget) is already set up; this seems a bit out of order to me, as it would forfeit the concept of system wide preferences; but if that is hard to fix, could we do a workaround in ubufox? That would be acceptable for this spec.

Thanks!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: firefox 5.0+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0-1.2-generic 3.0.0-rc3
Uname: Linux 3.0-1-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Jun 21 19:15:11 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
FirefoxPackages:
 firefox 5.0+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu1
 flashplugin-installer 10.3.181.26ubuntu1
 adobe-flashplugin N/A
 icedtea-plugin N/A
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha amd64 (20110302)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de:de_DE:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)